Am 25.06.26 um 03:27 schrieb ዮሴፍ ፈለቀ:
Thank you both for the insights and for explaining how the LINGUAS file works!
Duarte, I gave your suggestions a thorough try—including the environment variable method and attempting to swap out the .mo file in an existing language directory—but unfortunately, I still couldn't get the translation to register or display locally on my version of Inkscape.
Since the local testing workarounds didn't pan out, I want to pivot my focus entirely to working directly on the Weblate server as you both recommended. I will prioritize the high-traffic areas Maren mentioned, like the main menus, the Export dialog, and the Fill and Stroke panels.
Before I dive in, could you let me know if there are any specific documentation links, guides, or resources you recommend for learning how to navigate and use Weblate effectively?
I've never needed any documentation for doing translations in weblate, it was pretty self-explanatory, so I can't give any recommendations.
For administration, yes, but nothing beyond what is linked from the weblate page itself. The three-dots menu at the top has the link to the documentation.
Maren
Yoseph
On Wed, Jun 24, 2026, 7:49 PM Maren Hachmann maren@goos-habermann.de wrote:
Hi Yoseph,
for documentation, there is a threshold of '80% translated' per po file.
For the GUI translations, such a threshold does not exist, however we may manually disable languages that have a very low percentage / no translations, as has happened with Amharic in the past.
For a translation to be valuable to users, also the location of the translated strings in the interface is important. You can have lots of rarely seen strings translated, but the Fill and Stroke and Export dialog and menu items are not, for example. When starting out, I'd not focus on completion, but on the most important locations.
Let me know when you've uploaded your po file for the master branch for the first time! Maren
Am 23.06.26 um 23:11 schrieb ዮሴፍ ፈለቀ:
Thanks for the clarification!
Regarding updating the LINGUAS file once the translation is available in the repository from Weblate: does the Amharic translation need to be 100% complete for you to add it to the file, or is there a minimum completion percentage required before it can be included so I can start testing it normally?
Best regards, Yoseph
On Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 7:32 PM Maren Hachmann maren@goos-habermann.de wrote:
Hi all,
yes, Duarte is right.
When a new translation language is added, I need to update the LINGUAS file. I'll do that once the translation is available in the repository, coming from Weblate.
When I do that, I'll also check whether any other languages might be missing.
Please get your po file from the Weblate server, because that one is updated from the Inkscape codebase automatically.
If Inkscape is not available in the PATH, other programs on your computer will not find it, and you will not be able to launch Inkscape from the command line.
Thanks! Maren
Am 19.06.26 um 11:26 schrieb Duarte Farrajota Ramos:
Yeah, you are right, I could not get it to work either. I mostly use
Weblate
these days, so I might be giving you outdated or incorrect information. Looking at the source tree, there seems to be a hardcoded list of
available
languages for Inkscape at
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/translations/-/blob/4c5583adc297cd4a2e2d68b0e3c3...
Which probably means you have to ask the developers to add that new
language
to the list, and will only be available in either future versions or
alpha
builds. Either way since this is likely to be a process that will take some
time, in
the meantime so you are not waiting around, you could try something
else.
Try translating your new po file normally with the correct language,
but
when
you create the .mo file place it in the folder of some other existing
language
you don't plan on using, and replace the inkscape.mo file there (maybe
rename
the original for safe keeping), then from the UI pick that one language instead, and it should show you your translation in progress instead of
the
actual language you picked. Once it gets sorted out and your language does exist, you can then
place
it in
the correct folder. On 19/06/2026 at 01:18, ዮሴፍ ፈለቀ yosephfeleke22@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for the detailed steps! I actually tried that exact setup before your email—compiling my
progress into
an inkscape.mo file and placing it under Inkscape\share\locale\am\LC_MESSAGES\inkscape.mo. However, when I open Inkscape, Amharic doesn't show up as an option in the language dropdown settings at all. To help me figure out what I might be doing wrong, could you clarify a
couple
of things?
- The Source Files: I want to make sure I didn't download the wrong
files
from the server. Could you point me to the exact URL or directory
where I
should pull the correct .po files for the master branch? 2) System PATH: When installing Inkscape, there is an option that says
"By
default Inkscape does not add its directory to the system PATH." Does
leaving
this unchecked impact how Inkscape detects custom local translation
folders?
If these two things are not the source of the issue, do you have any
idea what
else might be causing it not to appear? Yoseph On Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 1:20 AM Duarte Ramos duarte.framos@gmail.com
wrote:
You can edit it by hand with any (programmer) plain text editor, like
Notepad
or Kate, but that is error prone and easy to mess up. For a more user friendly GUI approach, you can use any pot file editor
like
PoEdit or Lokalize, or any other that you find that you may like. I only used to use PoEdit, but they all probably have an option to
compile and
export an .mo file. You can then navigate to your Inkcape installation folder, under Inkscape\share\locale\ You will find a list of languages. If your translation target isn't
there,
create one with the corresponding language ISO code. In it place a
folder
called LC_MESSAGES, such that it ends up being something like Inkscape\share\locale##\LC_MESSAGES\ where ## is your language ISO
code.
In it place your .mo file named inkscape.mo you should then be able to
run
Inkcape normally, and see your language as an option in the UI
language.
You should end up with something like Inkscape\share\locale\am\LC_MESSAGES\inkscape.mo On 18/06/2026 at 22:28, ዮሴፍ ፈለቀ yosephfeleke22@gmail.com wrote: I have a quick question regarding the workflow. I prefer not to do the translations directly inside the Weblate web
interface,
so I went to the server and downloaded a ZIP file containing the .po
files to
work on them locally. However, looking at the files has left me a bit confused. Could you please guide me on: What the best practice is for working on these .po files locally? How I can properly test the translations to see how they look inside
Inkscape
on my machine? Yoseph On Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 12:50 PM ዮሴፍ ፈለቀ yosephfeleke22@gmail.com
wrote:
Hi Maren and Duarte, Thanks so much for the warm welcome and for pointing me in the right direction! I will look through the documentation links you shared and log into the translation server to check out the master branch. I'll let you know if
I run
into any questions as I get started. Yoseph On Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 1:50 AM Duarte Ramos duarte.framos@gmail.com
wrote:
Hi Yoseph. UI translation these days is mostly done through https://translate.inkscape.org/ Otherwise have you gone through https://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/Translation_information ? Let us know if you have any further difficulties. On 15/06/2026 at 00:06, ዮሴፍ ፈለቀ yosephfeleke22@gmail.com wrote: I want to work on translating Inkscape into Amharic. Can you please
tell
me
what I need to do? Yoseph
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