Translations

Translations can be done either via Weblate (preferred) or by using Qt utilities.

For explanation for some frequent words see Glossary.

Translating Keyboard Accelerators

Some texts contain single & character that is not visible in UI and is used to mark the following character as keyboard accelerator (the character is usually underlined in UI). This is used to quickly access labels, menu items etc. with keyboard shortcut.

E.g. &File menu item can be accesses with Alt+F shortcut on most systems.

If multiple UI elements have the same keyboard accelerator, associated shortcut cycles through them (if pressed multiple times). It’s better to avoid this by defining unique accelerator, but that’s not always easy.

If unsure, use the original one enclosed in parentheses, e.g. label For&mat: can be translated to simplified Chinese as 格式(&M):.

Writing Translatable Code

All GUI strings should be translatable. This is indicated in code with tr("Some GUI text", "Hints for translators").

Adding New Language

To add new language for the application follow these steps.

  1. Edit copyq.pro and add file name for new language (translations/copyq_<LANGUAGE>.ts) to TRANSLATIONS variable.
  2. Create new language file with lupdate copyq.pro.
  3. Add new language file to Git repository.
  4. Translate with Weblate service or locally with linguist translations/copyq_<LANGUAGE>.ts.