Translating Find

If you want to translate/localize/internationalize Find into another language, this article is for you!

How language bundles in Find work

Find uses Require.js for loading JavaScript modules. Require has a i18n (short for "internationalization") module for translating web applications. The documentation is here.

When a user navigates to the Find web application, the Find code "requires" the internationalization bundle. Internally, the i18n plugin reads the browser's locale and checks to see if there is a translation for that language - if there isn't, the default language bundle is used.

Adding a new language bundle

Let's translate Find into French.

1. Navigate to the Find i18n bundles directory: core/src/main/public/static/js/find/nls/root/
2. Open bundle.js - this is the master list of all translations - root is the default language, and an en-gb dummy translation has been provided as an example.
3. Add a new key-value pair to bundle.js. The key should be the RFC 1766 language tag (e.g. fr-ca for French (Canadian), nv for Navajo, etc). The value should be true, to enable the new translation.
4. Add the same key-value pair to errors.js and indexes.js.
5. Copy the root directory and give your copy the same name as the language tag you have added to the JavaScript files, e.g. fr-ca.
6. Open and edit all of the JavaScript files in your new folder. Replace the values of each key-value pair with your translations. Make sure that you match up all " and ' characters - using a tool like JSLint to check your syntax would be a good idea here (expect it to produce warnings, but keep an eye out for Unclosed string. messages)
7. Repeat steps (5) and (6) for the secondary i18n bundles directory: idol/src/main/public/static/js/find/idol/nls/root/
8. Build and deploy Find. Your translation is now available!

Replacing the default language bundle

The root language bundle is used as a default. Changing the language of the default is as simple as editing the root bundle.

1. Follow the steps for "Adding a new language bundle", to add a new en-us language bundle, using the existing root bundle.
2. Instead of editing your new language bundle, edit the JavaScript files in the root directory.

Translating custom sort options

Custom sort options can be configured in the configuration file (search.sortOptions property). To translate these, use the value null for the label property, and define a translation string search.resultsSort.<option ID>.

For example, the sort option "author": { "sort": "author:increasing", "label": null } can be translated using the translation string search.resultsSort.author.