meshview/docs/Translations.md

Translating Meshview

Set [site] language in config.ini to en, es, or ru, then restart the web server and reload the page. Language catalogs live in meshview/lang/.

The ui section uses the English source text as its key. Add the same key to all three catalogs, with English, Spanish, and Russian values respectively. Keep named placeholders such as {count} unchanged; their order can differ. Missing keys fall back to English. Existing page-specific sections remain supported and also receive English defaults through /api/lang.

Templates and scripts

For fixed template text or attributes, use Jinja's tr helper. Jinja escapes the translated result automatically:

<h1>{{ tr("Reliability") }}</h1>
<input placeholder="{{ tr('Search node...') }}">

Template pages embed their configured UI catalog before loading page scripts. For generated text, use the shared helper:

status.textContent = MeshI18n.t("Total: {count}", {count});

When composing HTML, use MeshI18n.h to escape both the translated string and its interpolated values:

popup.innerHTML = `<b>${MeshI18n.h("Node {id}", {id: node.node_id})}</b>`;

Pass application copy to these helpers. Do not pass packet payloads, device names, channel names, firmware identifiers, or protocol enum values as keys. Use MeshI18n.language when formatting dates and numbers for the UI.

Standalone static pages load /static/i18n.js and mark fixed copy explicitly:

<button data-i18n="Refresh">Refresh</button>
<input data-i18n-placeholder="Search node..." placeholder="Search node...">

data-i18n-title and data-i18n-aria-label translate their respective attributes. Before generating dynamic content on a standalone page, await MeshI18n.ready. English text remains usable if the language request fails. Only marked elements are changed; network content is never translated by a DOM observer.

API reference

Edit docs/API_Documentation.md and run:

node scripts/build-api-docs.mjs

The builder marks prose fragments for translation while preserving code examples and endpoint identifiers. Add new prose keys to the three ui catalogs after regenerating. Do not hand-edit the generated static/api.html.

Validation

env/bin/python -m pytest -q
node --test tests/i18n.test.cjs

The catalog tests check duplicate keys, language coverage, placeholder parity, UI source keys, template rendering, and English fallback. The JavaScript tests check interpolation, escaping, static-page loading, preservation of unmarked content, and sort indicators.