Translations

Nextcloud provides mechanisms for internationalization (make an application translatable) and localization (add translations for specific languages). This section provides detailed instructions for both aspects. In order to make your app translatable (internationalization), you should use Nextcloud’s methods for translating strings. They are available for both the server-side (PHP, Templates) as well as for the client-side (JavaScript).

PHP Backend

If localized strings are used in the backend code, simply inject the \OCP\IL10N class into your service via type hinting it in the constructor. You will automatically get the language object containing the translations of your app:

<?php
class AuthorService {
    public function __construct(
        private \OCP\IL10N $l,
    ) {
    }

    …
}

Strings can then be translated in the following way:

<?php
class AuthorService {

    …

    public function getLanguageCode() {
        // Get the language code of the current language
        return $this->l->getLanguageCode();
    }

    public sayHello() {
        // Simple string
        return $this->l->t('Hello');
    }

    public function getAuthorName($name) {
        // String using a parameter
        return $this->l->t('Getting author %1$s', [$name]);
    }

    public function getAuthors($count, $city) {
        // Translation with plural
        return $this->l->n(
            '%n author is currently in the city %1$s', // singular string
            '%n authors are currently in the city %1$s', // plural string
            $count, // number to decide which plural to use
            [$city] // further parameters are possible
        );
    }
}

Language of other users

If you need to get the language of another user, e.g. to send them an email or inside a background job, there are also the force_language and default_language configuration options to consider. To make this easier, the OCP\L10N\IFactory class comes with a getUserLanguage method:

<?php
class SendEmail {
    public function __construct(
        private \OCP\L10N\IFactory $l10nFactory,
     ) {
    }

    public function send(IUser $user): void {
        $lang = $this->l10nFactory->getUserLanguage($user);
        $l = $this->l10nFactory->get('myapp', $lang);

        // …
    }

PHP Templates

In every template the global variable $l can be used to translate the strings using its methods t() and n():

// Simple text string
<button><?php p($l->t('Hide')); ?></button>

// Text with a placeholder
<div><?php p($l->t('Show files of %1$s', [$user])); ?></div>

// Date string
<em><?php p($l->l('date', time())); ?></em>

JavaScript / TypeScript / Vue

There are global functions t() and n() available for translating strings in javascript code. If your app is build, you can import the translation functions from the @nextcloud/l10n package. They differ a bit in terms of usage compared to php:

  • First argument is the appId e.g. 'myapp'

  • Placeholders (apart from the count in plurals) use single-mustache brackets with meaning-full descriptors.

  • The parameter list is an object with the descriptors as key.

t('myapp', 'Hello World!');
t('myapp', '{name} is available. Get {linkstart}more information{linkend}', {name: 'Nextcloud 16', linkstart: '<a href="...">', linkend: '</a>'});
n('myapp', 'Import %n calendar into {collection}', 'Import %n calendars into {collection}', selectionLength, {collection: 'Nextcloud'});

Guidelines

Please also look through the following hints to improve your strings and make them better translatable by the community and therefore improving the experience for non-english users.

Dos and Don’ts

Bad

Good

Description

´ or ’

'

Use ascii single quote

Loading...

Loading …
Use unicode triple-dot character.
Add a space before the triple-dot when trimming a sentence instead of a word.

Don’t

Do not

Using the spelled out version is easier to understand and makes translating easier.

Won’t

Will not

Using the spelled out version is easier to understand and makes translating easier.

Can not

Cannot

Using the combined version is easier to understand and makes translating easier.

id

ID

Full uppercase for shortcutting “identifier”

Users

Accounts / People

Use accounts when you refer to a profile/entity. Use people when referring to humans.

Admin / Administrator

Administration
Refer to administration as a non-human organizational entity
instead of a single or multiple persons.

Headline

Headline:

Include colons : in the translations as some languages add a space before the colon.
“ Leading space”
“Trailing space “
“No leading space”
“No trailing space”
Leading or trailing spaces mostly indicate that strings are concatenated.
For translators it is often helpful to have all the content in a single translation,
as order and references between words and sentences might get lost otherwise.

“Error:” $error

“Error: %s”

Instead of concatenating errors or part messages, make them a proper placeholder

Correct plurals

If you use a plural, you must also use the %n placeholder. The placeholder defines the plural and the word without the number preceding is wrong. If you don’t know/have a number for your translation, e.g. because you don’t know how many items are going to be selected, just use an undefined plural. They exist in every language and have one form. They do not follow the normal plural pattern.

PHP Example:

// BAD: Plural without count
$title = $l->n('Import calendar', 'Import calendars', $selectionLength)
// BETTER: Plural has count, but disrupting to read and unnecessary information
$title = $l->n('Import %n calendar', 'Import %n calendars', $selectionLength)
// BEST: Simple string with undefined plural not using any number in the string
$title = $l->t('Import calendars')

Opposed to the normal placeholders in javascript, the plural number also uses the %n syntax:

JS Example:

/* BAD: Plural without count */
n('myapp', 'Import calendar', 'Import calendars', selected.length)
/* BETTER: Plural has count, but disrupting to read and unnecessary information */
n('myapp', 'Import %n calendar', 'Import %n calendars', selected.length)
/* BEST: Simple string with undefined plural not using any number in the string */
t('myapp', 'Import calendars')

Improving your translations

Starting with the following example, improving it step by step:

<?php p($l->t('Select file from')) . ' '; ?><a href='#' id="browselink"><?php p($l->t('local filesystem'));?></a><?php p($l->t(' or ')); ?><a href='#' id="cloudlink"><?php p($l->t('cloud'));?></a>

Step 1: String split

You shall never split sentences and never concatenate two translations (e.g. “Enable” and “dark mode” can not be combined to “Enable dark mode”, because languages might have to use different cases)! Translators lose the context and they have no chance to possibly re-arrange words/parts as needed.

Translators will translate:

  • Select file from

  • local filesystem

  • or (with leading and trailing whitespace)

  • cloud

Translating these individual strings results in local filesystem and cloud losing case. The two white spaces surrounding or will get lost while translating as well. For languages that have a different grammatical order it prevents the translators from reordering the sentence components.

So the following code is a bit better, but suffers from another issue:

<?php p($l->t('Select file from <a href="#" id="browselink">local filesystem</a> or <a href="#" id="cloudlink">cloud</a>'));?>

Step 2: HTML Markup

In this case the translators can re-arrange as they like, but have to deal with your markup and can mess it up easily. It is better to keep the markup out of your code, so the following translation is even better:

<?php p($l->t('Select file from %slocal filesystem%s or %scloud%s', ['<a href="#" id="browselink">', '</a>', '<a href="#" id="cloudlink">', '</a>']));?>

But there is one last problem with this.

Step 3: Placeholders

In case the language has to turn things around, your code will still insert the parameters in the given order and they can not re-order them. To prevent this last hurdle simply use positioned placeholders like %1$s:

<?php p($l->t('Select file from %1$slocal filesystem%2$s or %3$scloud%4$s', ['<a href="#" id="browselink">', '</a>', '<a href="#" id="cloudlink">', '</a>']));?>

This allows translators to have the cloudlink before the browselink in case the language is e.g. right-to-left.

Provide context hints for translators

In case some translation strings may be translated wrongly because they have multiple meanings. Especially translations strings that only contain a single word often result in problems. The most famous example in the Nextcloud code base is Share which can which can be the verb and action To share something or the noun A share. The added hints will be shown in the Transifex web-interface:

PHP

<ul id="translations">
    <li id="add-new">
        <?php
            // TRANSLATORS Will be shown inside a popup and asks the user to add a new file
            p($l->t('Add new file'));
        ?>
    </li>
</ul>

JavaScript / TypeScript

// TRANSLATORS name that is appended to copied files with the same name, will be put in parenthesis and appended with a number if it is the second+ copy
var copyNameLocalized = t('files', 'copy');

Vue

This covers vue html templates in vue sfc components. For vue js code, see the javascript section.

<NcActionCheckbox :checked="isRequired">
    <!-- TRANSLATORS Making this question necessary to be answered when submitting to a form -->
    {{ t('forms', 'Required') }}
</NcActionCheckbox>

C++ (Qt) / Desktop client

//: Example text: "Progress of sync process. Shows the currently synced filename"
fileProgressString = tr("Syncing %1").arg(allFilenames);

Android

<!-- TRANSLATORS List of deck boards -->
<string name="simple_boards">Boards</string>

iOS

/* The title on the navigation bar of the Scanning screen. */
"wescan.scanning.title"             = "Scanning";

Adding translations

The steps how to set up translations for an app have been moved to it’s own page in the “App development” chapter: Translation setup

Testing translations

You can use the query parameter forceLanguage to force a specific language for a web request (API or frontend). See Forcing language for a given call.