Translating

RadioFoundry has two sets of text to translate: the radio's (firmware) and the web site's (flasher, Codeplug Editor, tools). They are separate catalogs with separate tools; a language can have one without the other. English is the source of both. This page is the how-to; the rules are in ui.md 2.5 (radio) and website.md, Translating (site).

Translating the radio

How it works

The source is English. A string the radio shows is marked where it is written:

tools/i18n.py reads the marks, keeps the catalogs in step and turns each catalog into a table the build links in. With every language switched off, TR() is the text itself and the lookup is gone.

Adding a language

1. Start the catalog: python3 tools/i18n.py --new <code> <name>. <code> is the ISO 639-1 code (fr), <name> the language's own name (Français). This writes core/ui/lang/<code>.po with every marked string, untranslated.

2. Add the build switches: CONFIG_LANG_FR builds the language in, CONFIG_LANG_DEFAULT_FR makes it the one the radio starts in (for fr):

   File	Change
   config/features.mk	CONFIG_LANG_FR ?= n and CONFIG_LANG_DEFAULT_FR ?= n, next to the others; both in FEATURES; the $(error CONFIG_LANG_DEFAULT_FR=y needs CONFIG_LANG_FR=y) line, as the other languages have
   core/config.h	The #ifndef defaults (0) of both, and CONFIG_LANG_FR added to CONFIG_LANG_ANY
   docs/build-config.md	A row for each in the user interface table
   docs/feature-matrix.md	A row for each in the user interface table, with the measured bytes (the default costs none)
   tests/hil/features.toml	[feature.lang_fr], switch = "LANG_FR", and [feature.lang_default_fr], switch = "LANG_DEFAULT_FR"

   python3 tools/boards.py docs then adds the switches to the generated tables of the feature matrix.

   tools/i18n.py --check fails until every one of these is there.

3. Translate (below), then run python3 tools/i18n.py --check and the host tests (make -C tests/host).

4. Look at it: build the gallery in your language (below), or flash a build and pick it in Settings > Display > Language.

A new language is off by default. It is turned on by default only when it is widely used and the radios have the flash for it (build-config.md): Spanish is, Italian isn't. A language that is off is still listed on the radio, dimmed, and the web flasher offers to turn it on for a visitor whose browser asks for it. The web flasher also asks which language the radio starts in (preset to the page's when the build has it) and sets CONFIG_LANG_DEFAULT_<CODE> from it. A language picked there is built in: its CONFIG_LANG_<CODE> goes on with it.

Translating the catalog

Each entry is the English (msgid) and its translation (msgstr). Fill in the empty msgstr lines with any .po editor (Poedit, Lokalize) or a text editor. An empty one shows the English, so the radio works with a catalog partly done, but CI fails until every string is translated (When the source changes). In a text editor, write a double quote inside a string as \", as the msgid does.

#: core/ui/ui_menus.c
msgid "Backlight"
msgstr "Retroiluminación"

Some strings are joined in English word order, a number or name before or after a piece of text ("14m" + " ago"). Translate the piece so the joined text reads well ("14m atrás"), even when the usual phrase puts the words the other way round.

To see where a string goes, search for it in the file its #: line names: grep -n -F '"Backlight"' core/ui/ui_menus.c. The comments next to a TR() often say more. A string with a leading or trailing space is always such a piece.

When the source changes

python3 tools/i18n.py --sync adds the new marked strings to every catalog (untranslated) and drops the ones the source no longer has. A change that adds or edits a marked string runs it and commits the catalogs with the code.

A small edit of the English often leaves the translations right, so a changed string is a warning (tools/i18n_changes.py), not a failure: the reviewer reads the warning and decides whether each language needs an update. The same holds for the site's catalogs: a key whose English changed while a translation didn't is a warning.

A pull request that adds or rewrites text and can't translate it lists it as an open task in its description (- [ ] translations: es, it), and the strings are translated before the merge. To build or test with strings still untranslated, python3 tools/i18n.py --check --allow-pending skips them; CI doesn't.

python3 tools/i18n.py --stats shows how much of each catalog is translated.

Marking text in new code

A marked string is one C literal, or literals and the font.h glyph macros (GLYPH_ELLIPSIS, TEXT_ALT_OPEN, ...) next to each other. Not a variable, no \n (write the line break with sb_chr). A macro whose value is a TRN(...) is found like any other. Build text from pieces with sbuf_t, not strcpy/strcat: a translation can be longer than the English, and str_copy and sb_str cut it safely. Don't compare shown text with strcmp; compare the state it came from. After marking, run --sync and commit the catalogs.

Looking at the result

make -C tests/host ui-gallery renders the screens in English. To see a language, render the gallery with UI_LANG set to its code, into a directory outside the repo, and look for text that is cut or runs into something:

make -C tests/host uiSim
cd tests/host && UI_LANG=es ./uiSim --gallery /tmp/gallery-es    # contact sheets in /tmp/gallery-es/sheets

Commit only the English gallery.

Flash cost

The first language costs the most: the lookup and the Latin-1 glyphs of every font. Each further language adds only its text, about the size of the catalog's translations. Measure a language like any switch (building.md) and put the bytes in the feature matrix.

Translating the web site

1. Copy site/i18n/en.json to site/i18n/<code>.json and translate the values. Keep its format (one space of indent, UTF-8 as is: json.dumps(data, ensure_ascii=False, indent=1)). A key left out shows the English, but CI fails until every key is there (python3 -m rfoundrysite.i18n from site/ lists them).
2. Add the language to site/i18n/languages.json (code, name, dir, locale), and its catalog to tools/generic_allow.txt next to en.json: it carries the same per-radio texts.
3. If its plural rule differs from English's, add it to PLURAL_RULES in site/rfoundrysite/i18n.py.
4. python3 site/build.py --strict checks the catalog. python3 site/build.py --serve and http://localhost:8000/<code>/ shows it.

What the site leaves in English (radio data, error details, logs) is listed in website.md, What stays English. Translated documentation pages go in docs/i18n/<code>/.

Checks

tools/ci.sh runs all of them. In a pull request the warnings show as annotations on the changed catalog lines.

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