Article Internationalization

What is required from developers to get Phabricator translatable.

API

Translator API is provided by libphutil. It gives us PhutilTranslator class and global pht() function built on top of it.

Developers are supposed to call pht() on all strings that require translation.

Phabricator provides translations for this translator through PhabricatorTranslation class.

Adding a New Translation

Adding a translation which uses the same language rules as some already existing translation is relatively simple: Just extend PhabricatorTranslation and you will be able to specify this class in the global configuration 'translation.provider' and users will be able to select it in their preferences.

Adding a New Language

Adding a language involves all steps as adding a translation plus specifying the language rules in PhutilTranslator::chooseVariant().

Singular and Plural

Different languages have various rules for using singular and plural. All you need to do is to call pht() with a text that is suitable for both forms. Example:

pht('%d beer(s)', $count);

Translators will translate this text for all different forms the language uses:

// English translation
array('%d beer', '%d beers');

// Czech translation
array('%d pivo', '%d piva', '%d piv');

The ugly identifier passed to pht() will remain in the text only if the translation doesn't exist.

Male and Female

Different languages use different words for talking about males, females and unknown genders. Callsites have to call pht() passing PhabricatorUser (or other implementation of PhutilPerson) if talking about the user. Example:

pht('%s wrote', $actor);

Translators will create this translations:

// English translation
'%s wrote';

// Czech translation
array('%s napsal', '%s napsala');