<h1>Internationalization<aclass="headerlink"href="#internationalization"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<p><em>Internationalization</em> (often abbreviated <em>i18n</em> since there are 18 characters between the first “i”
and the last “n” in that word) allows Evennia’s core server to return texts in other languages than
English - without anyone having to edit the source code. Take a look at the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">locale</span></code> directory of
the Evennia installation, there you will find which languages are currently supported.</p>
<divclass="section"id="changing-server-language">
<h2>Changing server language<aclass="headerlink"href="#changing-server-language"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Change language by adding the following to your <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">mygame/server/conf/settings.py</span></code> file:</p>
<p>Here <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">'en'</span></code> should be changed to the abbreviation for one of the supported languages found in
<codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">locale/</span></code>. Restart the server to activate i18n. The two-character international language codes are
found <aclass="reference external"href="http://www.science.co.il/Language/Codes.asp">here</a>.</p>
<div><p>Windows Note: If you get errors concerning <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">gettext</span></code> or <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">xgettext</span></code> on Windows, see the <aclass="reference external"href="https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.7/topics/i18n/translation/#gettext-on-windows">Django
documentation</a>. A
self-installing and up-to-date version of gettext for Windows (32/64-bit) is available on
<p>If you cannot find your language in <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">evennia/locale/</span></code> it’s because noone has translated it yet.
Alternatively you might have the language but find the translation bad … You are welcome to help
improve the situation!</p>
<p>To start a new translation you need to first have cloned the Evennia repositry with GIT and
activated a python virtualenv as described on the <aclass="reference internal"href="../Setup/Setup-Quickstart.html"><spanclass="doc">Setup Quickstart</span></a> page. You now
need to <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">cd</span></code> to the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">evennia/</span></code> directory. This is <em>not</em> your created game folder but the main
Evennia library folder. If you see a folder <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">locale/</span></code> then you are in the right place. From here you
<p>where <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre"><language-code></span></code> is the <aclass="reference external"href="http://www.science.co.il/Language/Codes.asp">two-letter locale code</a>
for the language you want, like ‘sv’ for Swedish or ‘es’ for Spanish. After a moment it will tell
you the language has been processed. For instance:</p>
<p>If you started a new language a new folder for that language will have emerged in the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">locale/</span></code>
folder. Otherwise the system will just have updated the existing translation with eventual new
strings found in the server. Running this command will not overwrite any existing strings so you can
<div><p>Note: in Django, the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">makemessages</span></code> command prefixes the locale name by the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">-l</span></code> option (<codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">...</span><spanclass="pre">makemessages</span><spanclass="pre">-l</span><spanclass="pre">sv</span></code> for instance). This syntax is not allowed in Evennia, due to the fact that <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">-l</span></code>
is the option to tail log files. Hence, <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">makemessages</span></code> doesn’t use the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">-l</span></code> flag.</p>
<p>Next head to <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">locale/<language-code>/LC_MESSAGES</span></code> and edit the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">**.po</span></code> file you find there. You can
edit this with a normal text editor but it is easiest if you use a special po-file editor from the
web (search the web for “po editor” for many free alternatives).</p>
<p>The concept of translating is simple, it’s just a matter of taking the english strings you find in
the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">**.po</span></code> file and add your language’s translation best you can. The <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">**.po</span></code> format (and many
supporting editors) allow you to mark translations as “fuzzy”. This tells the system (and future
translators) that you are unsure about the translation, or that you couldn’t find a translation that
exactly matched the intention of the original text. Other translators will see this and might be
Finally, you need to compile your translation into a more efficient form. Do so from the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">evennia</span></code>
<p>This will go through all languages and create/update compiled files (<codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">**.mo</span></code>) for them. This needs
to be done whenever a <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">**.po</span></code> file is updated.</p>
<p>When you are done, send the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">**.po</span></code> and <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">*.mo</span></code> file to the Evennia developer list (or push it into
your own repository clone) so we can integrate your translation into Evennia!</p>
