freeCodeCamp/docs/how-to-test-translations-locally.md

How to Test Translations Locally

[!NOTE] This process is not required, but documented in case you would like to preview what your translations will look like.

If you would like to test your translations on a local instance of the freeCodeCamp /learn site, first ensure you have set up the codebase.

Enabling a Language

There are a few steps to take in order to allow the codebase to build in your desired language.

First, visit the config/i18n/all-langs.js file to add the language to the available languages list and configure the values. There are four objects here.

• availableLangs: For both the client and curriculum arrays, add the text name of the language. This is the value that will be used in the .env file later.
• i18nextCodes: These are the ISO language codes for each language. You will need to add the appropriate ISO code for the language you are enabling. These do need to be unique for each language.
• langDisplayNames: These are the display names for the language selector in the navigation menu.
• langCodes: These are the language codes used for formatting dates and numbers. These should be Unicode CLDR codes instead of ISO codes.

As an example, if you wanted to enable Dothraki as a language, your all-langs.js objects should look like this:

const availableLangs = {
  client: ['english', 'espanol', 'chinese', 'chinese-traditional', 'dothraki'],
  curriculum: [
    'english',
    'espanol',
    'chinese',
    'chinese-traditional',
    'dothraki'
  ]
};

const i18nextCodes = {
  english: 'en',
  espanol: 'es',
  chinese: 'zh',
  'chinese-traditional': 'zh-Hant',
  dothraki: 'mis'
};

const langDisplayNames = {
  english: 'English',
  espanol: 'Español',
  chinese: '中文（简体字）',
  'chinese-traditional': '中文（繁體字）',
  dothraki: 'Dothraki'
};

const langCodes = {
  english: 'en-US',
  espanol: 'es-419',
  chinese: 'zh',
  'chinese-traditional': 'zh-Hant',
  dothraki: 'mis'
};

Next, open the client/src/utils/algolia-locale-setup.js file. This data is used for the search bar that loads /news articles. While it is unlikely that you are going to test this functionality, missing the data for your language can lead to errors when attempting to build the codebase locally.

Add an object for your language to the algoliaIndices object. You should use the values for the english object for local testing, replacing the english key with your language's availableLangs value.

If you were to add Dothraki:

const algoliaIndices = {
  english: {
    name: 'news',
    searchPage: 'https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/search/'
  },
  espanol: {
    name: 'news-es',
    searchPage: 'https://www.freecodecamp.org/espanol/news/search/'
  },
  chinese: {
    name: 'news-zh',
    searchPage: 'https://chinese.freecodecamp.org/news/search/'
  },
  'chinese-traditional': {
    name: 'news-zh',
    searchPage: 'https://chinese.freecodecamp.org/news/search'
  },
  dothraki: {
    name: 'news',
    searchPage: 'https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/search/'
  }
};

Next, you will need to tell the client which certifications are translated, and which are still in English. Open the utils/is-audited.js file. Within the auditedCerts, add a new key with your language's availableLangs value. Assign the value of that key to an array containing the dashed names for the certifications that have been translated. Refer to the existing data for those dashed names.

Continuing the work to enable Dothraki - we have translated the first three certifications:

const auditedCerts = {
  espanol: [
    'responsive-web-design',
    'javascript-algorithms-and-data-structures'
  ],
  chinese: [
    'responsive-web-design',
    'javascript-algorithms-and-data-structures',
    'front-end-development-libraries',
    'data-visualization',
    'back-end-development-and-apis',
    'quality-assurance'
  ],
  'chinese-traditional': [
    'responsive-web-design',
    'javascript-algorithms-and-data-structures',
    'front-end-development-libraries',
    'data-visualization',
    'back-end-development-and-apis',
    'quality-assurance'
  ],
  dothraki: [
    'responsive-web-design',
    'javascript-algorithms-and-data-structures',
    'front-end-development-libraries'
  ]
};

Finally, in your .env file, set CLIENT_LOCALE and CURRICULUM_LOCALE to your new language (use the availableLangs value.)

CLIENT_LOCALE="dothraki"
CURRICULUM_LOCALE="dothraki"

Enabling Localized Videos

For the video challenges, you need to change a few things. First add the new locale to the GraphQL query in the client/src/templates/Challenges/video/Show.tsx file. For example, adding Dothraki to the query:

  query VideoChallenge($slug: String!) {
    challengeNode(fields: { slug: { eq: $slug } }) {
      videoId
      videoLocaleIds {
        espanol
        italian
        portuguese
        dothraki
      }
      ...

Then add an id for the new language to any video challenge in an audited block. For example, if auditedCerts in all-langs.js includes scientific-computing-with-python for dothraki, then you must add a dothraki entry in videoLocaleIds. The frontmatter should then look like this:

videoLocaleIds:
  espanol: 3muQV-Im3Z0
  italian: hiRTRAqNlpE
  portuguese: AelGAcoMXbI
  dothraki: new-id-here
dashedName: introduction-why-program
---

Update the VideoLocaleIds interface in client/src/redux/prop-types to include the new language.

export interface VideoLocaleIds {
  espanol?: string;
  italian?: string;
  portuguese?: string;
  dothraki?: string;
}

And finally update the challenge schema in curriculum/schema/challengeSchema.js.

videoLocaleIds: Joi.when('challengeType', {
  is: challengeTypes.video,
  then: Joi.object().keys({
    espanol: Joi.string(),
    italian: Joi.string(),
    portuguese: Joi.string(),
    dothraki: Joi.string()
  })
}),

Loading Translations

Because the language has not been approved for production, our scripts are not automatically downloading the translations yet. Only staff have the access to directly download the translations - you are welcome to reach out to us in our contributors chat room, or you can translate the English markdown files locally for testing purposes.

Once you have the files, you will need to place them in the correct directory. For the curriculum challenges, you should place the certification folders (i.e. 01-responsive-web-design) within the curriculum/challenges/{lang} directory. For our Dothraki translations, this would be curriculum/challenges/dothraki. The client translation .json files will go in the client/i18n/locales/{lang} directory.

Once these are in place, you should be able to run npm run develop to view your translated version of freeCodeCamp.

[!ATTENTION] While you may perform translations locally for the purpose of testing, we remind everyone that translations should not be submitted through GitHub and should only be done through Crowdin. Be sure to reset your local codebase after you are done testing.