Translating applets: Cinnamon Tutorials

Prepare translation function

Make sure the following two lines are imported in your applet.js file:

1 2	const GLib = imports.gi.GLib; const Gettext = imports.gettext;

Add the following lines to your applet before function MyApplet(...):

// l10n/translation support
const UUID = "yourApplet@You";
Gettext.bindtextdomain(UUID, GLib.get_home_dir() + "/.local/share/locale");

function _(str) {
    return Gettext.dgettext(UUID, str);
}

function MyApplet(metadata, orientation, panelHeight, instance_id) {
......

And don't forget to change the const UUID above to your applets UUID.

Prepare translatable strings

Every String in applet.js you want to be translated, needs to be put in brackets with underscore _(""), for example

1	_("This is a text, which needs to be translated")

Create translation template for the first time

Create a directory called po in the directory of your applet, where the metadata.json file is saved.
Open a terminal in the directory where the metadata.json file is saved.
Type in the command cinnamon-xlet-makepot

The command creates a translation template file yourApplet.pot in the po directory.

Create a translation for the first time with the application Poedit

Install the program "Poedit": sudo apt install poedit

Open Poedit and click on Create new translation.
Open the file yourApplet.pot.
Once the file is loaded, Poedit will ask you to choose a language for the translation.
At this point, the .po file can be saved and the name will automatically reflect the locale code.
Poedit usage is pretty much straight forward:
- There is the Source text box that contains the string to be translated (usually in English).
- There is the Translation box that will contain the translated text.
- If there is a .mo file saved, when you save your .po file, the .mo file should be deleted. You could also disable MO files creation from Poedit preferences (go to Edit > Preferences > General tab and uncheck the option called Automatically compile MO file when saving).

Update an existing translation template

Open a terminal in the directory where the metadata.json file is saved.
Type in the command cinnamon-xlet-makepot

The command overwrites yours translation template file yourApplet.pot in the po directory.

Updating an existing translation file

Open the .po file with Poedit.
Go to the menu Catalog and choose the Update from POT file... menu item.
Select yourApplet.pot file from which your .po file was based on.
Translate the new untranslated strings and save the changes.

Testing your translations

The translations will be installed automatically, when the applet is installed through System Settings > Applets > Applet available (online).

If you have installed your applet manually and you want to test your translations:

Open a terminal in the directory where the metadata.json file is saved.
Type in the command cinnamon-xlet-makepot -i to install the existing translations (i.e. the .po files)
Restart Cinnamon: CTRL+ALT+ESC

If you want to remove your translations manually:

Open a terminal in the directory where the metadata.json file is saved.
Type in the command cinnamon-xlet-makepot -r to remove the installed translations.
Restart Cinnamon: CTRL+ALT+ESC