Translations

Sylve uses Wuchale to extract interface text from the Svelte application and store translations in standard GNU gettext .po catalogs. English is the source language, and each supported locale has its own catalog.

You can contribute by translating existing messages, improving translations, or maintaining catalogs after interface text changes. Translators who only edit an existing .po file do not need to understand the application code.

Supported Catalogs

Translation sources live in web/src/locales/:

File	Language	Role
en.po	English	Source catalog
de.po	German	Translation catalog
mal.po	Malayalam	Translation catalog
hi.po	Hindi	Translation catalog
zh-CN.po	Simplified Chinese	Translation catalog
cs.po	Czech	Translation catalog

The .po files are the source of truth and must be committed. Files inside src/locales/.wuchale/ are generated and ignored by Git.

Translate Existing Messages

Open the .po file for your language in a translation editor or text editor. Each message normally contains a source reference, the English source text in msgid, and the translated text in msgstr:

src/routes/example/+page.svelte

msgid "Create virtual machine"
msgstr "Virtuelle Maschine erstellen"

Translate msgstr and leave msgid unchanged. Preserve placeholders, markup, keyboard shortcuts, and product terminology exactly where the message requires them. A placeholder that appears in the source must also appear in the translation.

Read nearby messages and, when useful, open the referenced Svelte file to understand where the text appears. Prefer natural language over word-for-word translation, but keep labels concise enough for the interface.

Do not translate:

• Product names such as Sylve, FreeBSD, ZFS, and bhyve
• Command names, configuration keys, paths, protocol names, or literal values
• Text inside source references or msgid
• PO headers unless you are intentionally correcting locale metadata

Set Up The Translation Tools

You need Node.js and npm when extracting messages or validating catalogs. From the repository root, install the frontend dependencies:

cd web
npm ci

Wuchale is already a project dependency, so run it through npx. The project configuration is stored in web/wuchale.config.js.

Extract New Source Strings

Run extraction after user-facing text is added, changed, or removed from the frontend:

npx wuchale

Wuchale scans the files configured for Sylve’s Svelte and JavaScript adapters, then updates the .po catalogs with messages found in the source. Review the resulting diff before translating. Source references may change even when the English message does not.

After extraction, remove messages that are no longer used:

npx wuchale --clean

The --clean option deletes unused messages from the catalogs instead of retaining them as obsolete entries. Run it only from the web/ directory and inspect the catalog diff afterward so an unexpected extraction change is not mistaken for intentionally removed text.

The normal catalog maintenance sequence is therefore:

npx wuchale
npx wuchale --clean

This follows Wuchale’s documented CLI behavior for extracting and cleaning catalogs.

Check Translation Status

To see message totals and the number of untranslated or obsolete entries for every locale, run:

npx wuchale status

Untranslated messages are allowed while a language is still being completed. They should not be filled with guesses merely to reduce the count.

Validate catalog structure and placeholders with:

npx wuchale check

For a read-only check that also detects source messages which have not been extracted and messages which have newly become obsolete, run:

npx wuchale check --full

The full check does not update the files. Use the extraction and cleanup commands when the catalogs need to be brought up to date.

Review The Result In Sylve

Start the frontend development server:

npm run dev

Select the translated language in Sylve and inspect the areas you changed. Check dialogs, tables, buttons, validation messages, and narrow layouts for clipped or overflowing text. Exercise plural messages and placeholders with more than one value when possible.

Before submitting, run the frontend checks and production build:

npm run lint
npm run check
npm run build

Commit Messages

Use the repository’s scoped commit format. Translation-only commits use locales: followed by a concise imperative summary:

locales: update German translations
locales: translate replication messages into Czech
locales: remove obsolete catalog entries

Keep unrelated languages or source-code changes in separate commits when that makes the contribution easier to review.

Open A Pull Request

Commit the changed .po files and any intentional source changes. Do not add generated files from .wuchale/. In the pull request description, state:

• The language or catalogs changed
• Whether you translated messages, extracted source changes, or cleaned obsolete entries
• Which parts of the interface you reviewed
• Which validation commands you ran

Pull requests that change application files run Sylve’s test and build workflows before merge. Review the automated results and address any catalog, frontend, or build failures.

If Git, Node.js, or npm is a barrier, email your translations to hello@sylve.io. Include the language, the English source text, your translation, and where the message appears if you know it.

Adding A New Language

Open a feature request asking for the language to be added. Include the language name and preferred locale code. A maintainer will add the integration and generate a starter .po file in the repository so translation can begin from a known-good catalog.

For more detail on how Wuchale stores and compiles translations, see its official documentation for catalogs and generated file structure.