Translate Leaf

Leaf’s interface is translated by people who use it. This page is how to start a new language, or fill in one that is partly done. You do not need to build Leaf or write any code.

If you only want to correct a line in a language that already ships, see Fixing a translation instead. It is a smaller job and does not need any of this.

What you work from

Every translatable string lives in one generated file:

i18n/leaf.pot

It is a template, so every entry has an empty translation waiting to be filled in. It is regenerated from the code, which means it is always the complete list - if a string is not in there, it is not translatable yet, and that is a bug worth reporting rather than something you can fix in the file.

A language sitting at 70 percent is not stalled, it is waiting for someone. These are the languages that exist today, straight from the repository, with the current file for each one:

Language	Covered	Current file
Español (México)	100%	es_MX.po
Français	69%	fr_FR.po
中文	78%	zh_CN.po
日本語	64%	ja_JP.po

Those files are the live ones. Start from the language’s own file rather than the template if it already exists, so you keep the work already done.

Starting a language

1. Download leaf.pot and rename it to your language code: de_DE.po, pt_BR.po, ja_JP.po. Use the language_REGION form.
2. Fill in the msgstr "" lines. Leave anything you are unsure of empty - an empty entry falls back to English, which is always better than a guess.
3. Send it in (see Sending it in).

An entry looks like this. The English is the key, so never change msgid:

internal/settings/settings.c

msgid "Auto Sleep"
msgstr "Reposo automático"

Things that will bite you

These are the ones that have actually caused problems, not a general style guide.

Keep the placeholders exactly. %s is a word Leaf drops in, %d is a number. They must survive into your translation, in a form that still makes sense, or Leaf can crash when it draws that line. The tooling rejects a %d that became %s, so a mistake here fails a check rather than reaching a device, but it is still the easiest thing to get wrong.

msgid "%d games"
msgstr "%d juegos"

Some keys carry a prefix before a |. In verb|Open, only Open is the text - the verb| part tells Leaf which of several identical English words this one is. Keep the prefix in msgid, and put only the translation in msgstr.

Leave the English in when you are not sure. Mixed English is normal in a translation in progress and nobody minds. A confidently wrong line is harder to find later than an empty one.

Space is tight. Leaf draws on a 960x720 handheld screen, and a label that is twice as long as the English will be cut off with an ellipsis. Where a shorter phrasing is honest, prefer it.

Some strings are hard to place. A few only appear in one situation - a shader caveat shown mid-game, an error you would have to break something to see. The #: comment above each entry names the source file it comes from, which is usually enough of a clue. If it is not, ask rather than guess.

Testing it on the device

You do not have to wait for a release to see your work. Leaf reads a plain tab-separated file from the SD card and prefers it over anything built in, so you can drop a file on the card and restart.

1. Convert your .po to a .tsv of English<TAB>translation lines, one per line.
2. Put it on the SD card at .umrk/mlp1/i18n/<your code>.tsv, for example .umrk/mlp1/i18n/de_DE.tsv.
3. Restart Leaf. Your language appears in Settings > System > Language just from the file being there.

That is the same mechanism used to correct a shipped translation, so anything you test this way behaves exactly as it will once merged, with one exception: a string that contains a line break, such as a two-paragraph message, cannot be written as a single .tsv line, so it stays in English while you test. It still ships, and it will appear translated in a release. There are only a handful of them.

Sending it in

Open an issue on the Jawaka repository with your .po attached, or say so on Discord and we will take it from there. Tell us the name you want credited, or that you would rather not be.

Partial work is welcome. Half a language that someone else can finish is worth far more than nothing, and the coverage badge is there so the next person can see where to pick it up.