[Archivesspace_Users_Group] how to add a new locale to ArchivesSpace?

Wed Dec 6 10:57:06 EST 2023

Hi Christine,

Many thanks for your detailed answer, and the complete overview of where to look for localization files.

Editing the yml files (at least those under common and frontend) is exactly the approach we've taken. So far, with the "hack" of editing the translations in the en.yml files.

I appreciate including a new translation into the ArchivesSpace code would take some time and thourough review. What I'm missing, still, is an answer to the question whether it's possible in the meantime to "properly" add a new localization, and register those nl.yml files as a NL localization in an ArchivesSpace distribution. That would make it easier, IMO, to share and contribute those Dutch translation files in an earlier stage with potential interested parties, and offer them in a more mature stage for inclusion into ArchivesSpace.

Best,

Ron

________________________________
Van: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org <archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org> namens Christine Di Bella <christine.dibella at lyrasis.org>
Verzonden: woensdag 6 december 2023 16:42
Aan: Archivesspace Users Group <archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org>
Onderwerp: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] how to add a new locale to ArchivesSpace?

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Hello Ron,

It’s great to hear that you’re working on customizing your interfaces to have the option of providing labels in Dutch. I believe there are some institutions in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg that have already done that, and you may hear from them here or directly. That would likely give you a very significant head start on your customization.

The Dutch translations themselves have not been contributed to the core ArchivesSpace yet, but we would be very interested in having them. We have a few options for contributing translations to ArchivesSpace, including using the Weblate service. If you are comfortable working directly with the .yml files, however, you need to first grab the ones from our GitHub repository itself. If you only use the ones in a release distribution file, your interface will be only partially translated.

These are the six directories to look for:

https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace/tree/master/common/locales

https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace/tree/master/common/locales/enums

https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace/tree/master/frontend/config/locales

https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace/tree/master/frontend/config/locales/help

https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace/tree/master/public/config/locales

https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace/tree/master/reports (there are locale files for each of the reports in the subdirectories under this main directory)

It’s probably easiest to use the en.yml ones as your starting point since the labels in the file (the text that appears before the colons) need to stay in English. Follow the pattern you see and make a set where each file is named nl.yml. Within the files, change the text that appears after the colon for each entry you want to be in Dutch. (Don’t change any of the formatting or line spacing since a computer is very literal.)

Once you’ve made all the changes you want, you can pull request the new files to us via GitHub, we can review, and then when all is correct and working like it should we will include them in a future release of ArchivesSpace.

There’s plenty more to say, but I’ll start there and see if anyone who’s currently working with a translated interface or with translations has advice to offer. We’re always interested in people submitting more languages for the ArchivesSpace application or improving the ones we have.

Christine

Christine Di Bella

ArchivesSpace Senior Program Manager

christine.dibella at lyrasis.org<mailto:christine.dibella at lyrasis.org>

[cid:image001.jpg at 01DA282F.D73F8850]

From: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org <archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org> On Behalf Of Ron Van den Branden
Sent: Wednesday, December 6, 2023 9:51 AM
To: archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org
Subject: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] how to add a new locale to ArchivesSpace?

Hi all,

We're in the process of customizing the ArchivesSpace (3.4.1) staff interface for use in a Dutch-speaking context. We would like to translate the back-end user interface to Dutch. So far, in order to gain speed, we've resorted to tweaking the en.yml localization files with Dutch labels. In the longer run, hijacking "English" for another language feels like a hack, though.

The documentation for "customizing text" at https://archivesspace.github.io/tech-docs/customization/locales.html  does mention where strings can be customized in current locales, but not how new locales can be added. Simply adding new locale files for new languages, with according names and language codes, at the right locations doesn't seem to do the trick:

  *   either the language is not being offered in the list of available languages
  *   when additionally the new language is specified explicitly in the config/config.rb file as AppConfig[:locale] = :nl , this yields following error at startup:

JSONModel::ValidationException: #<:ValidationException: {:errors=>{"defaults/locale"=>["Invalid value 'nl'.  Must be one of: en, fr, de, ja, es"]}}>

                      validate at uri:classloader:/jsonmodel_type.rb:385

            with_validator_for at uri:classloader:/validator_cache.rb:41

...so there must be more to adding a new locale. Yet, we can't find where in the ArchivesSpace distribution code such a list of default locales can be found or edited.

We did find the file in the ArchivesSpace source tree at https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace/blob/master/common/aspace_i18n.rb#L28 which defines above list of locales This file can't be found in the distribution code, however, so it's not clear how it relates to the distribution code. The commit history also shows commits from the Weblate project at https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/archivesspace-interfaces/#languages, which contains additional languages Portuguese and Italian.

This leads to following questions:

  *   what's the mechanism for adding a new locale to an ArchivesSpace instance?
  *   if our translations would reach a stage of being of broader interest, what would be the procedure for contributing them?

Kind regards,

Ron

Ron Van den Branden | functioneel analist - applicatiebeheerder Letterenhuis

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