| *mlang.txt* For Vim version 7.0aa. Last change: 2004 Feb 24 |
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| VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar |
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| Multi-language features *multilang* *multi-lang* |
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| This is about using messages and menus in various languages. For editing |
| multi-byte text see |multibyte|. |
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| The basics are explained in the user manual: |usr_45.txt|. |
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| 1. Messages |multilang-messages| |
| 2. Menus |multilang-menus| |
| 3. Scripts |multilang-scripts| |
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| Also see |help-translated| for multi-language help. |
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| {Vi does not have any of these features} |
| {not available when compiled without the |+multi_lang| feature} |
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| ============================================================================== |
| 1. Messages *multilang-messages* |
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| Vim picks up the locale from the environment. In most cases this means Vim |
| will use the language that you prefer, unless it's not available. |
| |
| To see a list of supported locale names on your system, look in one of these |
| directories (for Unix): |
| /usr/lib/locale ~ |
| /usr/share/locale ~ |
| Unfortunately, upper/lowercase differences matter. Also watch out for the |
| use of "-" and "_". |
| |
| *:lan* *:lang* *:language* *E197* |
| :lan[guage] |
| :lan[guage] mes[sages] |
| :lan[guage] cty[pe] |
| :lan[guage] tim[e] |
| Print the current language (aka locale). |
| With the "messages" argument the language used for |
| messages is printed. Technical: LC_MESSAGES. |
| With the "ctype" argument the language used for |
| character encoding is printed. Technical: LC_CTYPE. |
| With the "time" argument the language used for |
| strftime() is printed. Technical: LC_TIME. |
| Without argument all parts of the locale are printed |
| (this is system dependent). |
| The current language can also be obtained with the |
| |v:lang|, |v:ctype| and |v:lc_time| variables. |
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| :lan[guage] {name} |
| :lan[guage] mes[sages] {name} |
| :lan[guage] cty[pe] {name} |
| :lan[guage] tim[e] {name} |
| Set the current language (aka locale) to {name}. |
| The locale {name} must be a valid locale on your |
| system. Some systems accept aliases like "en" or |
| "en_US", but some only accept the full specification |
| like "en_US.ISO_8859-1". |
| With the "messages" argument the language used for |
| messages is set. This can be different when you want, |
| for example, English messages while editing Japanese |
| text. This sets $LC_MESSAGES. |
| With the "ctype" argument the language used for |
| character encoding is set. This affects the libraries |
| that Vim was linked with. It's unusual to set this to |
| a different value from 'encoding'. This sets |
| $LC_CTYPE. |
| With the "time" argument the language used for time |
| and date messages is set. This affects strftime(). |
| This sets $LC_TIME. |
| Without an argument both are set, and additionally |
| $LANG is set. |
| This will make a difference for items that depend on |
| the language (some messages, time and date format). |
| Not fully supported on all systems |
| If this fails there will be an error message. If it |
| succeeds there is no message. Example: > |
| :language |
| Current language: C |
| :language de_DE.ISO_8859-1 |
| :language mes |
| Current messages language: de_DE.ISO_8859-1 |
| :lang mes en |
| < |
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| MS-WINDOWS MESSAGE TRANSLATIONS *win32-gettext* |
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| If you used the self-installing .exe file, message translations should work |
| already. Otherwise get the libintl.dll file if you don't have it yet: |
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| http://sourceforge.net/projects/gettext |
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| This also contains tools xgettext, msgformat and others. |
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| libintl.dll should be placed in same directory with (g)vim.exe, or some |
| place where PATH environment value describe. Message files (vim.mo) |
| have to be placed in "$VIMRUNTIME/lang/xx/LC_MESSAGES", where "xx" is the |
| abbreviation of the language (mostly two letters). |
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| If you write your own translations you need to generate the .po file and |
| convert it to a .mo file. You need to get the source distribution and read |
| the file "src/po/README.txt". |
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| To overrule the automatic choice of the language, set the $LANG variable to |
| the language of your choice. use "en" to disable translations. > |
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| :let $LANG = 'ja' |
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| (text for Windows by Muraoka Taro) |
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| ============================================================================== |
| 2. Menus *multilang-menus* |
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| See |45.2| for the basics. |
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| Note that if changes have been made to the menus after the translation was |
| done, some of the menus may be shown in English. Please try contacting the |
| maintainer of the translation and ask him to update it. You can find the |
| name and e-mail address of the translator in |
| "$VIMRUNTIME/lang/menu_<lang>.vim". |
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| To set the font (or fontset) to use for the menus, use the |:highlight| |
| command. Example: > |
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| :highlight Menu font=k12,r12 |
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| ALIAS LOCALE NAMES |
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| Unfortunately, the locale names are different on various systems, even though |
| they are for the same language and encoding. If you do not get the menu |
| translations you expected, check the output of this command: > |
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| echo v:lang |
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| Now check the "$VIMRUNTIME/lang" directory for menu translation files that use |
| a similar language. A difference in a "-" being a "_" already causes a file |
| not to be found! Another common difference to watch out for is "iso8859-1" |
| versus "iso_8859-1". Fortunately Vim makes all names lowercase, thus you |
| don't have to worry about case differences. Spaces are changed to |
| underscores, to avoid having to escape them. |
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| If you find a menu translation file for your language with a different name, |
| create a file in your own runtime directory to load that one. The name of |
| that file could be: > |
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| ~/.vim/lang/menu_<v:lang>.vim |
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| Check the 'runtimepath' option for directories which are searched. In that |
| file put a command to load the menu file with the other name: > |
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| runtime lang/menu_<other_lang>.vim |
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| TRANSLATING MENUS |
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| If you want to do your own translations, you can use the |:menutrans| command, |
| explained below. It is recommended to put the translations for one language |
| in a Vim script. For a language that has no translation yet, please consider |
| becoming the maintainer and make your translations available to all Vim users. |
| Send an e-mail to the Vim maintainer <maintainer@vim.org>. |
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| *:menut* *:menutrans* *:menutranslate* |
| :menut[ranslate] clear |
| Clear all menu translations. |
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| :menut[ranslate] {english} {mylang} |
| Translate menu name {english} to {mylang}. All |
| special characters like "&" and "<Tab>" need to be |
| included. Spaces and dots need to be escaped with a |
| backslash, just like in other |:menu| commands. |
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| See the $VIMRUNTIME/lang directory for examples. |
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| To try out your translations you first have to remove all menus. This is how |
| you can do it without restarting Vim: > |
| :source $VIMRUNTIME/delmenu.vim |
| :source <your-new-menu-file> |
| :source $VIMRUNTIME/menu.vim |
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| Each part of a menu path is translated separately. The result is that when |
| "Help" is translated to "Hilfe" and "Overview" to "Überblick" then |
| "Help.Overview" will be translated to "Hilfe.Überblick". |
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| ============================================================================== |
| 3. Scripts *multilang-scripts* |
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| In Vim scripts you can use the |v:lang| variable to get the current language |
| (locale). The default value is "C" or comes from the $LANG environment |
| variable. |
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| The following example shows how this variable is used in a simple way, to make |
| a message adapt to language preferences of the user, > |
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| :if v:lang =~ "de_DE" |
| : echo "Guten Morgen" |
| :else |
| : echo "Good morning" |
| :endif |
| < |
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| vim:tw=78:sw=4:ts=8:ft=help:norl: |