Add i18n support and translations (ko, ja, zh_CN, zh_TW) by NEWBIE0413 · Pull Request #1511 · caelestia-dots/shell

NEWBIE0413 · 2026-06-04T06:20:56Z

Summary

The shell already wraps user-facing strings in qsTr(), but there was no
mechanism to actually load translations — QuickShell drives the shell with a
bare QQmlEngine and never installs a QTranslator, so qsTr() strings always
rendered in English regardless of locale, and there were no translation files.

This PR adds the missing i18n infrastructure plus initial translations.

Infrastructure (language-agnostic)

TranslationLoader installs a QTranslator for the current system locale,
searching the per-user data dir (~/.local/share/caelestia/translations) then
the system install dir.
A custom QQmlEngineExtensionPlugin for Caelestia.Internal overrides
initializeEngine() to load translations at startup (then retranslate()).
CMake compiles translations/*.ts → .qm via lrelease and installs them
where the loader looks. qml_module gains an optional PLUGIN_SOURCE arg so a
module can supply a hand-written plugin entry point.
A few previously-hardcoded UI strings (weather tab, lyric menu, keyboard-layout
tooltip) are now wrapped in qsTr().

Graceful no-op when no matching .qm exists — untranslated locales keep the
English source strings. Adding a language is just dropping in
translations/caelestia_<locale>.ts.

Translations (638 strings each)

Korean (ko) — reviewed by a native speaker.
Japanese (ja), Simplified Chinese (zh_CN), Traditional Chinese (zh_TW)
— machine-translated drafts. Community review by native speakers is very
welcome to refine wording; these are functional but not yet natively proofread.

Maintainers: if you'd prefer to merge only the reviewed Korean + infrastructure
and take the other languages separately (or wait for native review), happy to
split — just let me know.

Test Plan

Clean full build (extras;plugin;shell) succeeds; all four caelestia_*.qm are produced.
Placeholder integrity checked across all 4 files (0 mismatches, 0 unfinished, 0 empty).
Isolated run (qs -p) loads the matching .qm for the system locale (verified ko + ja),
reaches Configuration Loaded, no crash.
Non-translated locale (e.g. en_US) logs a graceful fallback to source strings.
All .ts compile cleanly with lrelease (638 finished, 0 unfinished each).

hdcy · 2026-06-12T12:15:53Z

Really excited to see this! Native i18n support would be a huge improvement — especially for Chinese users who'd love to get proper translations without relying on external scripts. Looking forward to seeing this land. Thanks for the great work!

QuickShell drives the shell with a bare QQmlEngine and never installs a QTranslator, so qsTr() strings always rendered in English regardless of locale. This adds the missing piece: - TranslationLoader: installs a QTranslator for the system locale, searching the per-user data dir then the system install dir. - A custom QQmlEngineExtensionPlugin for Caelestia.Internal overriding initializeEngine() to load translations at startup. - CMake: compile translations/*.ts to .qm via lrelease and install them where the loader looks; qml_module gains an optional PLUGIN_SOURCE arg. - Wrap previously-hardcoded UI strings (weather, lyrics, kb layout) in qsTr() so they become translatable. The infrastructure is language-agnostic and a graceful no-op when no matching .qm exists.

Translates 638 strings across the shell (bar, dashboard, network/VPN/ bluetooth settings, launcher, lock screen, weather, audio).

Machine-translated drafts covering all 638 strings; community review by native speakers is welcome to refine wording. The i18n infrastructure loads each automatically based on system locale.

- Format translationloader.cpp per project .clang-format. - Make LinguistTools optional (QUIET) guarded by 'if(TARGET Qt6::lrelease)'; the CI arch-env image lacks it and REQUIRED broke configure. - Store translationDirs() result in a const local to avoid clazy range-loop-detach on the QStringList.

NEWBIE0413 · 2026-06-20T03:27:29Z

Thank you! As a Korean user myself, I'd love to see this PR land too 🙂

Quick status update: I've just rebased onto the latest main (it had moved quite a bit) and fixed the CI failures — the branch is now mergeable and checks are re-running.

On the translations: Korean (ko) is reviewed by me as a native speaker, while Japanese and both Chinese variants (zh_CN, zh_TW) are machine-translated drafts — native-speaker review is very welcome to refine the wording. The infrastructure itself is language-agnostic, so adding more languages is just dropping in another .ts file.

MiguxJS · 2026-06-20T04:27:16Z

Hi! I'm really excited about this i18n infrastructure. I'd love to contribute by creating and maintaining the official Spanish (es) translation for the shell once this lands! Let me know if I can start working on it. 😄

soramanew

This is great! I'll have to do some testing myself, but overall this seems pretty decent.

soramanew · 2026-06-20T10:02:52Z

+    # Compile translations (.ts -> .qm) with lrelease and install where
+    # TranslationLoader looks. Done via a direct custom command because the shell
+    # has no build target for qt_add_translations to attach to. Skipped when
+    # LinguistTools is unavailable, so translations are an optional extra.


Can we not attach the translations to the module that the translations are loaded from?

Moved this — translations now attach to the base Caelestia module via the same qml_module helper, instead of the standalone custom command.

soramanew · 2026-06-20T10:04:14Z

IMO the translator belongs in the base Caelestia module compared to the internal module.

Done — moved translationloader and the plugin entry point into the base Caelestia module, namespace dropped to caelestia::. Verified it still loads (ko shows up).

Re-extracted against current main (565 strings): covers the new nexus apps page, notification settings, and 2.0 UI changes. Korean reviewed by a native speaker; ja/zh_CN/zh_TW are machine-translated drafts. Also fixes a stray trailing '>' that had crept into zh_TW entries.

Per review: the translator belongs in the base Caelestia module rather than Caelestia.Internal, and the translations attach to the module they're loaded from. Moves translationloader + the custom plugin entry point into the Caelestia module, drops the namespace to caelestia::, and renames the log category to caelestia.i18n.

NEWBIE0413 · 2026-06-20T14:52:24Z

Pushed the review changes — translator + plugin entry point moved into the base Caelestia module, and translations re-extracted against current main so they cover the 2.0 UI (nexus apps page, notification settings, etc). Tested locally, ko loads fine.

@MiguxJS that'd be great — once this lands, adding Spanish is just a caelestia_es.ts file, so feel free to start whenever.

NEWBIE0413 changed the title ~~Add i18n support and Korean translation~~ Add i18n support and translations (ko, ja, zh_CN, zh_TW) Jun 4, 2026

NEWBIE0413 added 3 commits June 20, 2026 12:17

i18n: add Korean (ko) translation

7562884

Translates 638 strings across the shell (bar, dashboard, network/VPN/ bluetooth settings, launcher, lock screen, weather, audio).

i18n: add Japanese (ja) and Chinese (zh_CN, zh_TW) translations

9474cec

Machine-translated drafts covering all 638 strings; community review by native speakers is welcome to refine wording. The i18n infrastructure loads each automatically based on system locale.

NEWBIE0413 force-pushed the feat/i18n-korean branch from b4f2e06 to 7c4e941 Compare June 20, 2026 03:25

NEWBIE0413 force-pushed the feat/i18n-korean branch from 7c4e941 to 626fdc9 Compare June 20, 2026 03:29

soramanew reviewed Jun 20, 2026

View reviewed changes

NEWBIE0413 added 2 commits June 20, 2026 23:08

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Add i18n support and translations (ko, ja, zh_CN, zh_TW)#1511

Add i18n support and translations (ko, ja, zh_CN, zh_TW)#1511
NEWBIE0413 wants to merge 6 commits into
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NEWBIE0413:feat/i18n-korean

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Summary

Infrastructure (language-agnostic)

Translations (638 strings each)

Test Plan

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hdcy commented Jun 12, 2026

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NEWBIE0413 commented Jun 4, 2026 •

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