Internationalization

This article is about how to realize and use localized C:B.

Original article written by heromyth.

Reviewed by gd_on.

Get the English POT file

The url of the english POT file is at:

for the original site (but obsolete) : https://translations.launchpad.net/codeblocks/trunk/+pots/codeblocks

or

for a new site : https://translations.launchpad.net/codeblocks-gd

More information can be seen at: https://forums.codeblocks.org/index.php/topic,10204.msg70638.html.

or :

https://forums.codeblocks.org/index.php/topic,1022.msg159075.html#msg159075

Of course, you can run extract.cmd (shown below) to generate the POT file. It extracts all the text chains from .cpp files and .xrc file, for the main core and the contribs plugins. It also extract strings from compiler's xml files and descriptions fields found in manifest*.xml from plugins. You can place it in a subdirectory of your codeblocks_src (created by svn for example), as src\i18n or a specific src\My_i18n.

This tool uses several unix-like tools as find, rm, grep, xargs, xgettext, msgcat, sed. Some of them are available with many MinGW distributions or Msys2.

Note : you must use the unix-like find.exe, not the Windows one : they have not the same syntax. So, the unix-like find.exe must be found in your PATH, before the Windows one!

The tool wxrc.exe's url is http://www.dlang.net/dl/wxrc.exe (not sure it's still available there). But you can find the source in wxWidgets/utils and build it.

For your convenience, some unix tools may be downloaded from Unix-Tools

The content of extract.cmd is below (or you can download it from Extract-Tool with also a more recent bash version, and a copy of unix tools and wxrc):

rem ======= Begin of extract.cmd =======
 
echo off
echo ****************************
echo * creating core .pot files *
echo ****************************
echo * 
find ../sdk ../src | grep -F .cpp | grep -v svn-base | grep -v .svn | grep -v .cpp.org | xargs xgettext --keyword=_ -o codeblocks1.pot 2> log.txt
find ../sdk ../src ../include | grep -F .h  | grep -v svn-base | grep -v .svn | grep -v .h.org | grep -v html | xargs xgettext --keyword=_ -o codeblocks2.pot 2>> log.txt
find ../scripts | grep -F .script | grep -v svn-base | grep -v .svn | xargs xgettext --keyword=_ -o codeblocks3.pot 2>> log.txt
find codeblocks1.pot > files.txt
find codeblocks2.pot >> files.txt
find codeblocks3.pot >> files.txt

find ../plugins | grep -v contrib | grep -F .cpp | grep -v .svn | grep -v svn-base | grep -v .patch | xargs xgettext --keyword=_ -o coreplugins1.pot 2>> log.txt
find ../plugins | grep -v contrib | grep -F .h   | grep -v .svn | grep -v svn-base | grep -v html   | xargs xgettext --keyword=_ -o coreplugins2.pot 2>> log.txt
find coreplugins1.pot >> files.txt
find coreplugins2.pot >> files.txt

echo *
echo *******************************
echo * creating contrib .pot files *
echo *******************************
echo *

find ../plugins/contrib	| grep -F .cpp | grep -v .svn | grep -v svn-base > file_c.txt
find ../plugins/contrib | grep -F .h   | grep -v .svn | grep -v svn-base | grep -v html | grep -v .gch >> file_c.txt
xgettext -f file_c.txt --keyword=_ -o  contribplugins.pot 2>> log.txt
find contribplugins.pot >> files.txt

echo *
echo ***************************************
echo * creating .cpp files from .xrc files *
echo ***************************************
echo *
find ../src/resources | grep -F .xrc | grep -v .svn | grep -v svn-base | xargs wxrc -g -o src_xrc.cpp 2>> log.txt
find ../sdk/resources | grep -F .xrc | grep -v .svn | grep -v svn-base | xargs wxrc -g -o sdk_xrc.cpp 2>> log.txt
find ../plugins | grep -F .xrc | grep -v .svn | grep -v svn-base | xargs wxrc -g -o plugins_xrc2.cpp 2>> log.txt
grep -v msp430x plugins_xrc2.cpp | grep -v msp430x | grep -v cc430x | grep -v jtag1 | grep -v jtag2 | grep -v jtagm | grep -v atxmega | grep -v atmega | grep -v attiny | grep -v at86 | grep -v at90 | grep -v AT90 > plugins_xrc.cpp

del plugins_xrc2.cpp

echo *
echo *************************************************
echo * creating .pot files from those local new .cpp *
echo *************************************************
echo *
find . | grep -F .cpp | xargs xgettext --keyword=_ -o xrc.pot 2>> log.txt
sed "s/\$\$*/\$/g" xrc.pot > xrc.pox
sed 's/\\\\\\\\/\\\\/g' xrc.pox > xrc.pot
find xrc.pot >> files.txt

echo *
echo *************************************************
echo * extracting strings from .xml compilers files  *
echo *************************************************
echo *
find ../plugins/compilergcc/resources/compilers | grep -F .xml | xargs grep -F "CodeBlocks_compiler name" > src_xml.cpp 2>> log.txt
find ../plugins/compilergcc/resources/compilers | grep -F .xml | xargs grep -F "Option name"   >>  src_xml.cpp 2>> log.txt
find ../plugins/compilergcc/resources/compilers | grep -F .xml | xargs grep -F "Category name" >>  src_xml.cpp 2>> log.txt
find ../plugins/compilergcc/resources/compilers | grep -F .xml | xargs grep -F "checkMessage"  >>  src_xml.cpp 2>> log.txt
grep -v mabi src_xml.cpp | grep -v mno | grep -v apcs | grep -v mtpcs | grep -v mshed | grep -v msoft | grep -v mhard | grep -v mfpe | grep -v msched | grep -v mlong | grep -v mpic | grep -v mcirrus | grep -v mcalle | grep -v mpoke | grep -v mwords | grep -v "MSP430 1" | grep -v "MSP430 2" | grep -v "MSP430 3" | grep -v "MSP430 4" | grep -v "MSP430 5" | grep -v "MSP430 6" | grep -v "MSP430 E" | grep -v "MSP430 W" |  grep -v "MSP430 MS" | grep -v "MSP430 G4" | grep -v "CC430 5" | grep -v "CC430 6" | grep -v ATmega | grep -v AT90 | grep -v ATtiny | grep -v mcpu > src_xml2.cpp
xgettext -a -o xml.pox src_xml2.cpp
sed "s/"/\\\\""/g" xml.pox > xml1.pot
find xml1.pot >> files.txt

echo *
echo *************************************************"
echo * extracting strings from manifest*.xml files   *"
echo *************************************************"
echo *

find ../plugins | grep -F manifest | grep -F .xml | grep -v svn-base | grep -v .svn | xargs sed -n -e "/description/,/>/p" | sed '/author/d' | sed ":a;N;$!ba;s/\n/\\\n/g" | sed 's/""//g' | sed "s/"/\\\\""/g" | sed "s/&/\&/g" > src_xml3.cpp 2>> log.txt
xgettext -a -o xml2.pot src_xml3.cpp
find xml2.pot >> files.txt

echo *
echo **********************************
echo * Merging and sorting .pot files *
echo **********************************
echo *
msgcat -s -f files.txt -o All_codeblocks.pox 2>> log.txt
rm -f *.pot *.cpp files.txt file_c.txt
sed "s/#, c-format//g" All_codeblocks.pox > All_codeblocks.pot

rm -f *.pox

echo *
echo ***************
echo * The END !!! *
echo ***************
echo on
rem ======= End of extract.cmd =======

The tools for translation

Usually, we use the poEdit tool which can be downloaded here.

Of course, you can do the translation directly on Launchpad.

You'll find on Launchpad, two available downloads : a .po file, that you can use to edit or modify it, and a .mo file, a compiled ready to use in Code::Blocks. It's name may be quite long, but it does not matter. Only the extension is important.

Translating with poEdit

Rename or copy All_codeblocks.pot into All_codeblocks.po. Use poEdit to open the file All_codeblocks.po. Change a few settings like:

[File]->[Preferences]->[Personalize]

[Catalog]->[Settings]->[Project info]->[Team/email/Language/Charset]

If Code::Blocks is compiled with Unicode, the charset should be set to utf-8; If Code::Blocks is compiled with ANSI, the charset should be set to your own language charset like gb2312, koi8-r etc.

After these settings are done, you can start translating. Don't be fooled, it's a long work! During the process, of course, you can use your translation at any time.

You can also download the .po file from Launchpad, work on it with poedit locally on your machine, and re-upload it on Launchpad to update and share your work.

Note: It may be necessary to approve this work, and sometimes to validate your own translations (or wait for someone else to validate them).

Create and use the .mo file

Pressing Ctrl+S in poEdit, you can get a *.mo file like All_codeblocks.mo which is what we need. To use All_codeblocks.mo, we just place it into C:\Program Files\CodeBlocks\share\CodeBlocks\locale\<lang>\. My language is French and I have installed C::B into C:\, so I place All_codeblocks.mo into C:\Program Files\CodeBlocks\share\CodeBlocks\locale\fr_FR.

If you want to use All_codeblocks.mo under Linux or Unix, you just place it into /usr/X11R6/share/locale/<lang>/LC_MESSAGES/ or in the share/locale/<lang< sub-directory of your codeblocks installation, as in Windows (may be something like /usr/share/codeblocks/locale/<lang> (for me <lang> is fr_FR). Create sub-directories if necessary.

Details about internationalization using wxWidgets can be found in the wxWidgets docs.

Let Code::Blocks support your language

In Code::Blocks menu, Settings, Environment, View, you'll find a check-box for Internationalization. If you check it, you'll normally find your language in the dropdown list.