Frequently Asked Questions

Configuração

How to create an automated workflow?

Weblate can handle all the translation things semi-automatically for you. If you give it push access to your repository, the translations can happen without interaction, unless some merge conflict occurs.

  1. Set up your Git repository to tell Weblate when there is any change, see Ganchos de notificação for info on how to do it.

  2. Set a push URL at your Component configuration in Weblate, this allows Weblate to push changes to your repository.

  3. Turn on push-on-commit on your Project configuration in Weblate, this will make Weblate push changes to your repository whenever they happen at Weblate.

How to access repositories over SSH?

Please see Accessing repositories for info on setting up SSH keys.

How to fix merge conflicts in translations?

Merge conflicts happen from time to time when the translation file is changed in both Weblate and the upstream repository concurrently. You can usually avoid this by merging Weblate translations prior to making changes in the translation files (e.g. before running msgmerge). Just tell Weblate to commit all pending translations (you can do it in Repository maintenance in the Manage menu) and merge the repository (if automatic push is not on).

If you’ve already ran into a merge conflict, the easiest way is to solve all conflicts locally at your workstation - is to simply add Weblate as a remote repository, merge it into upstream and fix any conflicts. Once you push changes back, Weblate will be able to use the merged version without any other special actions.

Nota

Depending on your setup, access to the Weblate repository might require authentication. When using the built in Git exporter in Weblate, you authenticate with your username and the API key.

# Commit all pending changes in Weblate, you can do this in the UI as well:
wlc commit
# Lock the translation in Weblate, again this can be done in the UI as well:
wlc lock
# Add Weblate as remote:
git remote add weblate https://hosted.weblate.org/git/project/component/
# You might need to include credentials in some cases:
git remote add weblate https://username:APIKEY@hosted.weblate.org/git/project/component/

# Update weblate remote:
git remote update weblate

# Merge Weblate changes:
git merge weblate/master

# Resolve conflicts:
edit …
git add …
…
git commit

# Push changes to upstream repository, Weblate will fetch merge from there:
git push

# Open Weblate for translation:
wlc unlock

If you’re using multiple branches in Weblate, you can do the same to all of them:

# Add and update Weblate remotes
git remote add weblate-one https://hosted.weblate.org/git/project/one/
git remote add weblate-second https://hosted.weblate.org/git/project/second/
git remote update weblate-one weblate-second

# Merge QA_4_7 branch:
git checkout QA_4_7
git merge weblate-one/QA_4_7
... # Resolve conflicts
git commit

# Merge master branch:
git checkout master
git merge weblates-second/master
... # Resolve conflicts
git commit

# Push changes to the upstream repository, Weblate will fetch the merge from there:
git push

In case of gettext PO files, there is a way to merge conflicts in a semi-automatic way:

Fetch and keep a local clone of the Weblate Git repository. Also get a second fresh local clone of the upstream Git repository (i. e. you need two copies of the upstream Git repository: An intact and a working copy):

# Add remote:
git remote add weblate /path/to/weblate/snapshot/

# Update Weblate remote:
git remote update weblate

# Merge Weblate changes:
git merge weblate/master

# Resolve conflicts in the PO files:
for PO in `find . -name '*.po'` ; do
    msgcat --use-first /path/to/weblate/snapshot/$PO\
               /path/to/upstream/snapshot/$PO -o $PO.merge
    msgmerge --previous --lang=${PO%.po} $PO.merge domain.pot -o $PO
    rm $PO.merge
    git add $PO
done
git commit

# Push changes to the upstream repository, Weblate will fetch merge from there:
git push

How do I translate several branches at once?

Weblate supports pushing translation changes within one Project configuration. For every Component configuration which has it turned on (the default behavior), the change made is automatically propagated to others. This way translations are kept synchronized even if the branches themselves have already diverged quite a lot, and it is not possible to simply merge translation changes between them.

Once you merge changes from Weblate, you might have to merge these branches (depending on your development workflow) discarding differences:

git merge -s ours origin/maintenance

How to translate multi-platform projects?

Weblate supports a wide range of file formats (see Formatos de arquivos suportados) and the easiest approach is to use the native format for each platform.

Once you have added all platform translation files as components in one project (see Adding translation projects and components), you can utilize the translation propagation feature (turned on by default, and can be turned off in the Component configuration) to translate strings for all platforms at once.

How to export the Git repository that Weblate uses?

There is nothing special about the repository, it lives under the DATA_DIR directory and is named vcs/<project>/<component>/. If you have SSH access to this machine, you can use the repository directly.

For anonymous access, you might want to run a Git server and let it serve the repository to the outside world.

Alternatively, you can use Git exporter inside Weblate to automate this.

What are the options for pushing changes back upstream?

This heavily depends on your setup, Weblate is quite flexible in this area. Here are examples of some workflows used with Weblate:

  • Weblate automatically pushes and merges changes (see How to create an automated workflow?).

  • You manually tell Weblate to push (it needs push access to the upstream repository).

  • Somebody manually merges changes from the Weblate git repository into the upstream repository.

  • Somebody rewrites history produced by Weblate (e.g. by eliminating merge commits), merges changes, and tells Weblate to reset the content in the upstream repository.

Of course you are free to mix all of these as you wish.

How can I limit Weblate access to only translations, without exposing source code to it?

You can use git submodule for separating translations from source code while still having them under version control.

  1. Create a repository with your translation files.

  2. Add this as a submodule to your code:

    git submodule add git@example.com:project-translations.git path/to/translations
    
  3. Link Weblate to this repository, it no longer needs access to the repository containing your source code.

  4. You can update the main repository with translations from Weblate by:

    git submodule update --remote path/to/translations
    

Please consult the git submodule documentation for more details.

How can I check whether my Weblate is set up properly?

Weblate includes a set of configuration checks which you can see in the admin interface, just follow the Performance report link in the admin interface, or open the /manage/performance/ URL directly.

Why are all commits committed by Weblate <noreply@weblate.org>?

This is the default committer name, configured when you create a translation component. You can change it in the administration at any time.

The author of every commit (if the underlying VCS supports it) is still recorded correctly as the user that made the translation.

Usage

How do I review the translations of others?

  • You can subscribe to any changes made in Notificações and then check others contributions as they come in by e-mail.

  • There is a review tool available at the bottom of the translation view, where you can choose to browse translations made by others since a given date.

How do I provide feedback on a source string?

On context tabs below translation, you can use the Comments tab to provide feedback on a source string, or discuss it with other translators.

How can I use existing translations while translating?

  • Use the import functionality to load compendium as translations, suggestions or translations needing review. This is the best approach for a one-time translation using a compendium or a similar translation database.

  • You can set up tmserver with all databases you have and let Weblate use it. This is good when you want to use it several times during translation.

  • Another option is to translate all related projects in a single Weblate instance, which will make it automatically pick up translations from other projects as well.

Does Weblate update translation files besides translations?

Weblate tries to limit changes in translation files to a minimum. For some file formats it might unfortunately lead to reformatting the file. If you want to keep the file formatted your way, please use a pre-commit hook for that.

For monolingual files (see Formatos de arquivos suportados) Weblate might add new translation strings not present in the template, and not in actual translations. It does not however perform any automatic cleanup of stale strings as that might have unexpected outcomes. If you want to do this, please install a pre-commit hook which will handle the cleanup according to your requirements.

Weblate also will not try to update bilingual files in any way, so if you need po files being updated from pot, you need to do it yourself.

Where do language definitions come from and how can I add my own?

The basic set of language definitions is included within Weblate and Translate-toolkit. This covers more than 150 languages and includes info about plural forms or text direction.

You are free to define your own languages in the administrative interface, you just need to provide info about it.

Can Weblate highlight changes in a fuzzy string?

Weblate supports this, however it needs the data to show the difference.

For Gettext PO files, you have to pass the parameter --previous to msgmerge when updating PO files, for example:

msgmerge --previous -U po/cs.po po/phpmyadmin.pot

For monolingual translations, Weblate can find the previous string by ID, so it shows the differences automatically.

Why does Weblate still show old translation strings when I’ve updated the template?

Weblate does not try to manipulate the translation files in any way other than allowing translators to translate. So it also does not update the translatable files when the template or source code have been changed. You simply have to do this manually and push changes to the repository, Weblate will then pick up the changes automatically.

Nota

It is usually a good idea to merge changes done in Weblate before updating translation files, as otherwise you will usually end up with some conflicts to merge.

For example with gettext PO files, you can update the translation files using the msgmerge tool:

msgmerge -U locale/cs/LC_MESSAGES/django.mo locale/django.pot

In case you want to do the update automatically, you can install addon Atualizar arquivos PO para corresponder ao POT (msgmerge).

Troubleshooting

Requests sometimes fail with “too many open files” error

This happens sometimes when your Git repository grows too much and you have many of them. Compressing the Git repositories will improve this situation.

The easiest way to do this is to run:

# Go to DATA_DIR directory
cd data/vcs
# Compress all Git repositories
for d in */* ; do
    pushd $d
    git gc
    popd
done

Ver também

DATA_DIR

When accessing the site I get a “Bad Request (400)” error

This is most likely caused by an improperly configured ALLOWED_HOSTS. It needs to contain all hostnames you want to access on your Weblate. For example:

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['weblate.example.com', 'weblate', 'localhost']

What does mean “There are more files for the single language (en)”?

This typically happens when you have translation file for source language. Weblate keeps track of source strings and reserves source language for this. The additional file for same language is not processed.

  • Caso a tradução para o idioma de origem seja desejada, altere o Idioma fonte nas configurações do projeto.

  • Caso o arquivo de tradução para o idioma de origem não seja necessário, remova-o do repositório.

  • Caso o arquivo de tradução para o idioma de origem seja necessário, mas deva ser ignorado pelo Weblate, ajuste o Filtro de idioma para excluí-lo.

Recursos

Does Weblate support other VCSes than Git and Mercurial?

Weblate currently does not have native support for anything other than Git (with extended support for GitHub, Gerrit and Subversion) and Mercurial, but it is possible to write backends for other VCSes.

You can also use Git remote helpers in Git to access other VCSes.

Weblate also supports VCS less operation, see Local files.

Nota

For native support of other VCSes, Weblate requires using distributed VCS, and could probably be adjusted to work with anything other than Git and Mercurial, but somebody has to implement this support.

How does Weblate credit translators?

Every change made in Weblate is committed into VCS under the translators name. This way every single change has proper authorship, and you can track it down using the standard VCS tools you use for code.

Additionally, when the translation file format supports it, the file headers are updated to include the translator’s name.

Why does Weblate force showing all PO files in a single tree?

Weblate was designed in a way that every PO file is represented as a single component. This is beneficial for translators, so they know what they are actually translating. If you feel your project should be translated as one, consider merging these po files. It will make life easier even for translators not using Weblate.

Nota

In case there is great demand for this feature, it might be implemented in future versions.

Why does Weblate use language codes such sr_Latn or zh_Hant?

These are language codes defined by RFC 4646 to better indicate that they are really different languages instead previously wrongly used modifiers (for @latin variants) or country codes (for Chinese).

Weblate still understands legacy language codes and will map them to current one - for example sr@latin will be handled as sr_Latn or zh@CN as zh_Hans.