Internationalization Reference

How to localize your module.

1. Introduction

Internationalization in Hexya groups several aspects:

  • Translating the application so that the user sees the user interface in his own language.

  • Displaying numbers, dates, currency amounts, etc. according to the user’s locale

  • Translating record data

1.1. Available languages

Available languages in the application are defined at startup by passing the --languages (or -l) flag with a comma separated list of language codes:

$ hexya server --languages fr,es,it,de

If a translation does not exist in the source code of one or several modules, then the original string in the default language is displayed (typically English).

2. Application translation

This section covers translating the application, that all the text that will appear in the user interface.

The translation process is made of 4 stages:

  • Define what needs to be translated

  • Extract the PO files with the translation strings

  • Translate the strings

  • Load back the translation

2.1. Define what needs to be translated

Strings to be translated may appear in different contexts:

Strings in resources

This includes strings in views, menus and actions. No special action is needed here, Hexya knows by itself which strings are to be extracted from their XML definition.

Strings in model definition

This includes model fields description and help strings, as well as Selection fields labels. These are also extracted automatically without any special declaration.

Strings inside Go Code

This includes strings that can be displayed to the client or to the log from inside a Go method. To translate such strings, they need to be passed to the T() method of a RecordSet or a model:

h.OpenAcademyCourse().Methods().HelloWorld().DeclareMethod(
    `HelloWorld returns a localized "Hello World" message`,
    func(rs m.PartnerSet) string {
        return rs.T("Hello World")
    })
Strings inside client code

This includes strings hardcoded into the client. Since Hexya is client-agnostic, each client should register an extract function for their strings.

2.2. Extract the PO files

A PO file with all the strings to be translated can be created by the hexya command:

$ hexya i18n update path/to/a/module -l fr,it,de

The above command will create 3 files fr.po, it.po and de.po in the i18n/ subdirectory of the module at path/to/a/module. The i18n/ subdirectory must exist prior to running hexya i18n update.

Note
 If there is already a XX.po file in the i18n/ directory, its translated strings will be kept in the newly generated PO file.

2.3. Translate the strings

PO files are a common translation file format and can be edited by many dedicated tools.

2.4. Load back the translation

No special step is necessary here other than a server restart with the newly translated language(s) set with the --languages flag.

3. Displaying according to user’s locale

Not implemented yet

4. Translating record data

Not implemented yet