Frequently Asked Questions¶

Configuration¶

How to create an automated workflow?¶

Weblate can handle all the translation things semi-automatically for you. If you give it push access to your repository, the translations can happen without interaction, unless some merge conflict occurs.

Set up your Git repository to tell Weblate when there is any change, see Notification hooks for info on how to do it.
Set a push URL at your Component configuration in Weblate, this allows Weblate to push changes to your repository.
Turn on Push on commit on your Component configuration in Weblate, this will make Weblate push changes to your repository whenever they happen at Weblate.

How to access repositories over SSH?¶

Please see Accessing repositories for info on setting up SSH keys.

How to fix merge conflicts in translations?¶

Merge conflicts happen from time to time when the translation file is changed in both Weblate and the upstream repository concurrently. You can usually avoid this by merging Weblate translations prior to making changes in the translation files (e.g. before running msgmerge). Just tell Weblate to commit all pending translations (you can do it in Repository maintenance in the Manage menu) and merge the repository (if automatic push is not on).

If you’ve already encountered a merge conflict, the easiest way to solve all conflicts locally on your machine, is to add Weblate as a remote repository, merge it into upstream and fix any conflicts. Once you push changes back, Weblate will be able to use the merged version without any other special actions.

Note

Depending on your setup, access to the Weblate repository might require authentication. When using the built-in Git exporter in Weblate, you authenticate with your username and the API key.

# Open an existing checkout of the upstream repository or perform a fresh one:
git clone UPSTREAM_REPOSITORY_URL
cd REPO
# Commit all pending changes in Weblate, you can do this in the UI as well:
wlc commit
# Lock the translation in Weblate, again this can be done in the UI as well:
wlc lock
# Add Weblate as remote:
git remote add weblate https://hosted.weblate.org/git/project/component/
# You might need to include credentials in some cases:
git remote add weblate https://username:[email protected]/git/project/component/

# Update weblate remote:
git remote update weblate

# Merge Weblate changes:
git merge weblate/main

# Resolve conflicts:
edit …
git add …
…
git commit

# Rebase changes (if Weblate is configured to do rebases)
git rebase origin/main

# Push changes to upstream repository, Weblate will fetch merge from there:
git push

# Open Weblate for translation:
wlc unlock

If you’re using multiple branches in Weblate, you can do the same to all of them:

# Add and update Weblate remotes
git remote add weblate-one https://hosted.weblate.org/git/project/one/
git remote add weblate-second https://hosted.weblate.org/git/project/second/
git remote update weblate-one weblate-second

# Merge QA_4_7 branch:
git checkout QA_4_7
git merge weblate-one/QA_4_7
... # Resolve conflicts
git commit

# Merge main branch:
git checkout main
git merge weblates-second/main
... # Resolve conflicts
git commit

# Push changes to the upstream repository, Weblate will fetch the merge from there:
git push

In case of gettext PO files, there is a way to merge conflicts in a semi-automatic way:

Fetch and keep a local clone of the Weblate Git repository. Also get a second fresh local clone of the upstream Git repository (i. e. you need two copies of the upstream Git repository: An intact and a working copy):

# Add remote:
git remote add weblate /path/to/weblate/snapshot/

# Update Weblate remote:
git remote update weblate

# Merge Weblate changes:
git merge weblate/main

# Resolve conflicts in the PO files:
for PO in `find . -name '*.po'` ; do
    msgcat --use-first /path/to/weblate/snapshot/$PO\
               /path/to/upstream/snapshot/$PO -o $PO.merge
    msgmerge --previous --lang=${PO%.po} $PO.merge domain.pot -o $PO
    rm $PO.merge
    git add $PO
done
git commit

# Push changes to the upstream repository, Weblate will fetch merge from there:
git push

How do I translate several branches at once?¶

Weblate supports pushing translation changes within one Project configuration. For every Component configuration which has it turned on (the default behavior), the change made is automatically propagated to others. This way translations are kept synchronized even if the branches themselves have already diverged quite a lot, and it is not possible to simply merge translation changes between them.

Once you merge changes from Weblate, you might have to merge these branches (depending on your development workflow) discarding differences:

git merge -s ours origin/maintenance

How to translate multi-platform projects?¶

Weblate supports a wide range of file formats (see Supported file formats) and the easiest approach is to use the native format for each platform.

Once you have added all platform translation files as components in one project (see Adding translation projects and components), you can utilize the translation propagation feature (turned on by default, and can be turned off in the Component configuration) to translate strings for all platforms at once.

How to export the Git repository that Weblate uses?¶

There is nothing special about the repository, it lives under the DATA_DIR directory and is named vcs/<project>/<component>/. If you have SSH access to this machine, you can use the repository directly.

For anonymous access, you might want to run a Git server and let it serve the repository to the outside world.

Alternatively, you can use Git exporter inside Weblate to automate this.

What are the options for pushing changes back upstream?¶

This heavily depends on your setup, Weblate is quite flexible in this area. Here are examples of some workflows used with Weblate:

Weblate automatically pushes and merges changes (see How to create an automated workflow?).
You manually tell Weblate to push (it needs push access to the upstream repository).
Somebody manually merges changes from the Weblate git repository into the upstream repository.
Somebody rewrites history produced by Weblate (e.g. by eliminating merge commits), merges changes, and tells Weblate to reset the content in the upstream repository.

Of course you are free to mix all of these as you wish.

How can I limit Weblate access to only translations, without exposing source code to it?¶

You can use git submodule for separating translations from source code while still having them under version control.

Create a repository with your translation files.

Add this as a submodule to your code:

git submodule add [email protected]:project-translations.git path/to/translations

Link Weblate to this repository, it no longer needs access to the repository containing your source code.
You can update the main repository with translations from Weblate by:
```
git submodule update --remote path/to/translations
```

Please consult the git submodule documentation for more details.

How can I check whether my Weblate is set up properly?¶

Weblate includes a set of configuration checks which you can see in the admin interface, just follow the Performance report link in the admin interface, or open the /manage/performance/ URL directly.

Why are all commits committed by Weblate <noreply@weblate.org>?¶

This is the default committer name, configured by DEFAULT_COMMITER_EMAIL and DEFAULT_COMMITER_NAME.

The author of every commit (if the underlying VCS supports it) is still recorded correctly as the user that made the translation.

For commits where no authorship is known (for example anonymous suggestions or machine translation results), the authorship is credited to the anonymous user (see ANONYMOUS_USER_NAME). You can change the name and e-mail in the management interface.

See also

Component configuration

How to move files in the repository without losing history in Weblate?¶

To keep the history, comments, or screenshots linked to strings after changing the files location you need to ensure that these strings are never deleted in Weblate. These removals can happen in case the Weblate repository is updated, but the component configuration still points to the old files. This makes Weblate assume that it should delete all the translations.

The solution to this is to perform the operation in sync with Weblate:

Lock the affected component in Weblate.
Commit any pending changes and merge them into the upstream repository.
Disable receiving webhooks the Project configuration; this prevents Weblate from immediately seeing changes in the repository.
Do any needed changes in the repo (for example using git mv), push them to the upstream repository.
Change the Component configuration to match the new setup; upon changing configuration, Weblate will fetch the updated repository and notice the changed locations while keeping existing strings.
Unlock the component and re-enable hooks in the project configuration.

Hint

Project level backups might be useful to perform prior to such disrupting changes.

Usage¶

How do I review the translations of others?¶

There are several review based workflows available in Weblate, see Translation workflows.
You can subscribe to any changes made in Notifications and then check others contributions as they come in by e-mail.
There is a review tool available at the bottom of the translation view, where you can choose to browse translations made by others since a given date.

See also

Translation workflows

How do I provide feedback on a source string?¶

On context tabs below translation, you can use the Comments tab to provide feedback on a source string, or discuss it with other translators.

How can I use existing translations while translating?¶

All translations within Weblate can be used thanks to shared translation memory.
You can import existing translation memory files into Weblate.
Use the import functionality to load compendium as translations, suggestions or translations needing review. This is the best approach for a one-time translation using a compendium or a similar translation database.
You can set up tmserver with all databases you have and let Weblate use it. This is good when you want to use it several times during translation.
Another option is to translate all related projects in a single Weblate instance, which will make it automatically pick up translations from other projects as well.

Does Weblate update translation files besides translations?¶

Weblate tries to limit changes in translation files to a minimum. For some file formats it might unfortunately lead to reformatting the file. If you want to keep the file formatted your way, please use a pre-commit hook for that.

See also

Updating target-language files

Where do language definitions come from and how can I add my own?¶

The basic set of language definitions is included within Weblate and Translate-toolkit. This covers more than 150 languages and includes info about plural forms or text direction.

You are free to define your own languages in the administrative interface, you just need to provide info about it.

See also

Language definitions

Can Weblate highlight changes in a fuzzy string?¶

Weblate supports this, however it needs the data to show the difference.

For Gettext PO files, you have to pass the parameter --previous to msgmerge when updating PO files, for example:

msgmerge --previous -U po/cs.po po/phpmyadmin.pot

For monolingual translations, Weblate can find the previous string by ID, so it shows the differences automatically.

Why does Weblate still show old translation strings when I’ve updated the template?¶

Weblate does not try to manipulate the translation files in any way other than allowing translators to translate. So it also does not update the translatable files when the template or source code have been changed. You simply have to do this manually and push changes to the repository, Weblate will then pick up the changes automatically.

Note

It is usually a good idea to merge changes done in Weblate before updating translation files, as otherwise you will usually end up with some conflicts to merge.

How to handle renaming translation files?¶

When renaming files in the repository, it can happen that Weblate sees this as removal and adding of the files. This can lead to losing strings history, comments and suggestions.

To avoid that, perform renaming in following steps:

Lock the translation component in Managing the local VCS repository.
Commit pending changes in Managing the local VCS repository.
Merge Weblate changes to the upstream repository.
Disable receiving updates via hooks using Enable hooks.
Perform the renaming of the files in the repository.
Update the component configuration to match new file names.
Enable update hooks and unlock the component.

Hint

Project level backups might be useful to perform prior to such disrupting changes.

Troubleshooting¶

Requests sometimes fail with “too many open files” error¶

This happens sometimes when your Git repository grows too much and you have many of them. Compressing the Git repositories will improve this situation.

The easiest way to do this is to run:

# Go to DATA_DIR directory
cd data/vcs
# Compress all Git repositories
for d in */* ; do
    pushd $d
    git gc
    popd
done

See also

DATA_DIR

When accessing the site I get a “Bad Request (400)” error¶

This is most likely caused by an improperly configured ALLOWED_HOSTS. It needs to contain all hostnames you want to access on your Weblate. For example:

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ["weblate.example.com", "weblate", "localhost"]

See also

Allowed hosts setup

What does mean “There are more files for the single language (en)”?¶

This typically happens when you have translation file for source language. Weblate keeps track of source strings and reserves source language for this. The additional file for same language is not processed.

In case the translation to the source language is desired, please change the Source language in the component settings. You might want to use English (Developer) as a source language, or utilize Quality gateway for the source strings.
In case the translation file for the source language is not needed, please remove it from the repository.
In case the translation file for the source language is needed, but should be ignored by Weblate, please adjust the Language filter to exclude it.

Hint

You might get similar error message for other languages as well. In that case the most likely reason is that several files map to single language in Weblate.

This can be caused by using obsolete language codes together with new one (ja and jp for Japanese) or including both country specific and generic codes (fr and fr_FR). See Parsing language codes for more details.

Features¶

Does Weblate support other VCSes than Git and Mercurial?¶

Weblate currently does not have native support for anything other than Git (with extended support for GitHub pull requests, Gerrit and Subversion) and Mercurial, but it is possible to write backends for other VCSes.

You can also use Git remote helpers in Git to access other VCSes.

Weblate also supports VCS-less operation, see Local files.

Note

For native support of other VCSes, Weblate requires using distributed VCS, and could probably be adjusted to work with anything other than Git and Mercurial, but somebody has to implement this support.

See also

Version control integration

How does Weblate credit translators?¶

Every change made in Weblate is committed into VCS under the translators name. This way every single change has proper authorship, and you can track it down using the standard VCS tools you use for code.

Additionally, when the translation file format supports it, the file headers are updated to include the translator’s name.

Why does Weblate force showing all PO files in a single tree?¶

Weblate was designed in a way that every PO file is represented as a single component. This is beneficial for translators, so they know what they are actually translating.

Changed in version 4.2: Translators can translate all the components of a project into a specific language as a whole.

Why does Weblate use language codes such sr_Latn or zh_Hant?¶

These are language codes defined by RFC 5646 to better indicate that they are really different languages instead previously wrongly used modifiers (for @latin variants) or country codes (for Chinese).

Weblate still understands legacy language codes and will map them to current one - for example sr@latin will be handled as sr_Latn or zh@CN as zh_Hans.

Note

Weblate defaults to POSIX style language codes with underscore, see Language definitions for more details.