Contributing Translations¶

Poweradmin uses the GNU gettext system for internationalization. Translation files are stored as .po (Portable Object) files in the locale/ directory.

Supported Languages¶

Poweradmin ships 43 locales as of v4.5.0.

Locale	Language	Locale	Language
ar_SA	Arabic	lt_LT	Lithuanian
bg_BG	Bulgarian	lv_LV	Latvian
bs_BA	Bosnian	ms_MY	Malay
cs_CZ	Czech	nb_NO	Norwegian Bokmål
da_DK	Danish	nl_NL	Dutch
de_DE	German	pl_PL	Polish
el_GR	Greek	pt_BR	Portuguese (Brazil)
en_EN	English	pt_PT	Portuguese
es_ES	Spanish	ro_RO	Romanian
et_EE	Estonian	ru_RU	Russian
fa_IR	Persian	sk_SK	Slovak
fi_FI	Finnish	sl_SI	Slovenian
fr_FR	French	sq_AL	Albanian
ga_IE	Irish	sr_RS	Serbian
he_IL	Hebrew	sv_SE	Swedish
hi_IN	Hindi	th_TH	Thai
hr_HR	Croatian	tr_TR	Turkish
hu_HU	Hungarian	uk_UA	Ukrainian
id_ID	Indonesian	vi_VN	Vietnamese
it_IT	Italian	zh_CN	Chinese (Simplified)
ja_JP	Japanese	zh_TW	Chinese (Traditional)
ko_KR	Korean

Arabic, Persian and Hebrew are right-to-left; the interface flips direction for them.

File Structure¶

locale/
├── i18n-template-php.pot          # Master template (source of truth)
├── en_EN/
│   └── LC_MESSAGES/
│       ├── messages.po            # Translation source file
│       └── messages.mo            # Compiled binary (auto-generated)
├── de_DE/
│   └── LC_MESSAGES/
│       ├── messages.po
│       └── messages.mo
└── ...

.pot (PO Template) - Master template extracted from source code containing all translatable strings.
.po (Portable Object) - Human-editable translation file for each locale.
.mo (Machine Object) - Compiled binary used at runtime, generated from .po files.

How to Contribute¶

Prerequisites¶

A PO file editor such as Poedit, Lokalize, or any text editor
GNU gettext tools (msgfmt) for compiling
Git for cloning and submitting changes

Steps¶

Fork and clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/poweradmin/poweradmin.git
cd poweradmin

Open the PO file for your language, for example German:
```
locale/de_DE/LC_MESSAGES/messages.po
```
Translate the strings. Each entry looks like this:
```
#: lib/Application/Controller/ZoneController.php:45
msgid "Zone has been added successfully."
msgstr "Zone wurde erfolgreich hinzugefügt."
```
- #: shows the source file and line where the string is used
- msgid is the original English string (do not modify)
- msgstr is your translation

Handle format strings carefully. Strings with %s, %d, or %1$s placeholders must keep those placeholders intact:

#, php-format
msgid "There are %d zones in the database."
msgstr "Es gibt %d Zonen in der Datenbank."

Handle plural forms. Some strings have plural variants:
```
msgid "One zone"
msgid_plural "%d zones"
msgstr[0] "Eine Zone"
msgstr[1] "%d Zonen"
```
The number of msgstr[] entries depends on the language's plural rules defined in the PO file header.

Compile your changes:

msgfmt locale/de_DE/LC_MESSAGES/messages.po \
    -o locale/de_DE/LC_MESSAGES/messages.mo

Submit a pull request with both the .po and .mo files.

Tips¶

Preserve HTML tags (<a>, <strong>, etc.) in translations
Keep placeholder variables (%s, %d) in the same order unless using positional syntax (%1$s)
Untranslated strings fall back to English automatically
Test your translations by switching the language on the login page
Focus on commonly seen strings first (menu items, buttons, form labels)
Entries marked #, fuzzy need review and are not used at runtime - remove the fuzzy flag after verifying

Checking Translation Progress¶

To see how complete a translation is:

msgfmt --statistics locale/de_DE/LC_MESSAGES/messages.po

Output example:

2650 translated messages, 45 fuzzy translations, 25 untranslated messages.

Tools¶

Poedit¶

Poedit is a cross-platform PO file editor with syntax highlighting, validation, and translation memory. It compiles .mo files automatically on save.

Command-line¶

# Compile PO to MO
msgfmt messages.po -o messages.mo

# Check PO file for errors
msgfmt --check messages.po

# Show translation statistics
msgfmt --statistics messages.po