mybuddy/docs/contributing/translation.md

# Translation

## POEditor

Baby Buddy uses [POEditor](https://poeditor.com/) for translation contributions.
Interested contributors can [join translation of Baby Buddy](https://poeditor.com/join/project/QwQqrpTIzn)
for access to a simple, web-based frontend for adding/editing translation files
to the project.

## Manual

Baby Buddy has support for translation/localization. A manual translation
process will look something like this:

1.  Set up a development environment (see [Development environment](development-environment.md)).

1.  Run `gulp makemessages -l xx` where `xx` is a specific locale code in the
    [ISO 639-1 format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes) (e.g.,
    "il" for Italian or "es" for Spanish). This creates a new translation file at
    `locale/xx/LC_MESSAGES/django.po`, or updates one if it exists.

1.  Open the created/updated `django.po` file and update the header template
    with license and contact info.

1.  Start translating! Each translatable string will have a `msgid` value with
    the string in English and a corresponding (empty) `msgstr` value where a
    translated string can be filled in.

1.  Once all strings have been translated, run `gulp compilemessages -l xx` to
    compile an optimized translation file (`locale/xx/LC_MESSAGES/django.mo`).

1.  To expose the new translation as a user setting, add the locale code to the
    `LANGUAGES` array in the base settings file (`babybuddy/settings/base.py`).

1.  Check if Plotly offers a translation (in `node_modules/plotly.js/dist/`) for
    the language. If it does:

        1. Add the Plotly translation file path to [`gulpfile.config.js`](https://github.com/babybuddy/babybuddy/tree/master/gulpfile.config.js)
           in `scriptsConfig.graph`.

        2. Build, collect, and commit the `/static` folder (see [`gulp updatestatic`](gulp-command-reference.md#updatestatic)).

1.  Run the development server, log in, and update the user language to test the
    newly translated strings.

Once the translation is complete, commit the new files and changes to a fork
and [create a pull request](pull-requests.md) for review.

For more information on the Django translation process, see Django's
documentation section: [Translation](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.0/topics/i18n/translation/).