Basics

This page explains how an application finds its texts and what that means for the files you edit.

Locales

A locale is a language, possibly for a region. Each locale has a short key, for example en for English, de for German or de-AT for German in Austria. A locale definition (.locale) describes a locale: its key, its name as shown to the user, its icons and a few settings. See Locale definitions.

A locale can have a base locale. A locale de-AT based on de only needs the texts that differ in Austria; all other texts are taken from de.

Language tables

A language table (.ltab or .cltab) contains the texts of one locale for an application or a part of it. The Locale field in the header of the table says which locale the texts belong to. An application usually has one table per language, for example app.en.ltab, app.de.ltab and app.fr.ltab, each with the same symbols.

Symbols and texts

Each entry of a table has a symbol and a text. The symbol is the name the application uses to ask for a text; it is the same in all languages. The text is the translation. Symbols usually consist of words separated by dots, for example menu.file.open or message.saved. Upper and lower case matter: Save and save are two different symbols.

Prefixes

The prefix keeps the symbols of different applications or components apart. The application asks for a text as prefix:symbol, for example app:menu.file.open. In the table you only enter the symbol (menu.file.open) and the prefix once in the header. A table with several prefixes provides its symbols under each of them; a table without prefix provides them as they are.

Placeholders

Texts can contain placeholders: a $ followed by a name in capital letters, for example $NAME in $NAME has been saved. The application replaces them with a value. Keep placeholders unchanged when you translate a text; you may move them to another position in the sentence.

Access keys

In texts for menus, buttons and labels, an & marks the letter that is underlined and can be used with Alt, for example &Open.... Within one menu or window, every letter should be used only once. To show an & itself, write &&.

What happens if a text is missing

If the table of the current locale does not contain a symbol, the application uses the text of the base locale or a text built into the application, usually the English one. A missing entry therefore does not cause an error, but the user sees an untranslated text.

If the same symbol occurs twice for the same locale, the later one wins. The editor warns you about such duplicates, both in the table and when it opens a file.