# novelWriter Internationalisation (i18n)

Here you will find instructions for translating novelWriter to a new language or updating the
translations for an already existing supported language.

There are two areas relevant to localisation:

* The Qt5 GUI translation files, which consists of `nw_XX.ts` files. This is the bulk of the
  translation work.
* The `project_XX.json` files. See [Project Localisation](#project-localisation) below.


**Important:**

When making a new translation, or updating an existing one, only commit the `nw_XX.ts` (and
`project_XX.json`) files you have made changes to. The `qtlupdate` command mentioned below may
modify all `nw_XX.ts` slightly, but please _don't_ commit those changes to the pull request.

## Qt5 GUI Localisation

You will need the tools Qt 5 Linguist and the PyQt5 tool `pylupdate5` installed on your system.

For Ubuntu/Debian, run:
```bash
sudo apt install qttools5-dev-tools pyqt5-dev-tools
```

### Workflow

Here's an overview of the localisation workflow:

1. First, create a new branch off of `main`, and there, generate a new `nw_XX.ts` translation file.
1. Load the translation file in Qt Linguist. Translate and save your changes.
1. Generate the `nw_XX.qm` file.
1. Run the application and verify your changes. Iterate from step 2.
1. Once finished, commit your changes and submit your pull request.

When you want to translate new changes, again create a new branch off of `main` and re-generate the
translation file. Continue from step 2.

### Generate an Updated Translation File

The `i18n` folder at the root of the repository contains the `nw_XX.ts` translation files.

Whether to add a new language to the translation framework, or to  update the file against the
current source code, you must first run the `qtlupdate` command:
```bash
python3 setup.py qtlupdate i18n/nw_XX.ts
```

The file name must be in the correct format. All translation files must be located in the `i18n`
folder, start with `nw_` and end with `.ts`. In between goes the language code. It must be a valid
ISO language code, otherwise novelWriter will not accept the file.

For instance, the French translation uses the language code `fr`, so its translation file will be
`nw_fr.ts`

**Note:** If you run the `qtlupdate` command without a file name, it will update translation files
for all languages.

### Edit the Translation File in Qt Linguist

The `i18n/nw_XX.ts` file can be edited with the Qt Linguist application provided by Qt 5. This is
by far easier than manually editing the `.ts` file.

Please select "English" and "United Kingdom" as the _source_ language if prompted by Qt Linguist.

### Verify Your Translation

The application does not use `.ts` files directly. The `novelwriter/assets/i18n/nw_XX.qm` files are
the actual files used to translate the GUI into another language other than the default British
English. These files are not generated by default, but they can be built with:
```bash
python3 setup.py qtlrelease
```

You can now test the translation in novelWriter. The Preferences dialog should list the newly added
language, so go ahead and select it.

**Note:** Please do not submit the `.qm` files to the repository. Only the `.ts` file you just
added in the `i18n` folder is needed.

### Missing QtBase Translations

The default Qt dialogs also have translations, for instance for standard buttons like "Yes", "No",
"Ok", "Cancel", etc. Generally, these translation files are installed with the Qt libraries on your
system, and novelWriter will collect those translations from there. However, these translations are
missing for many languages.

As a starting point, there is no need to translate any entries in the `.ts` files that are under
elements starting with the letter "Q", like "QPlatformTheme", "QWizard", etc. If these turn up in
English in novelWriter after activating a translation, it means they are probably missing in the Qt
library, and you may also need to translate these.

These additional translation entries are generated from a file named `i18n/qtbase.py`, which is not
a file that novelWriter uses. It is there only to generate these additional entries for the `.ts`
files.

## Project Localisation

Projects can have a different language setting than the GUI itself. The files with format
`project_XX.json` in `novelwriter/assets/i18n` are simple translation maps for text that goes into
the exported documents generated by the Build Novel Project tool.

The files are loaded based on the language setting in the Build Novel Project tool. At the present
time, no other parts of the application use these files. Since these are used as replacement
lookups, they are maintained as plain JSON files. The main usage is to generate chapter headers as
number words.

Adding new translations for these files is easy. Just copy the `project_en.json` file, rename it to
the appropriate language coded filename, and open it in a text editor. Please use the underscore as
separator if a language needs to be localised to a specific country under a language. The importer
will for instance look for `en_US` first, then use `en` if it is not found. If there are no
matching files, the project falls back to using English.