create new (german) locale

[schubichler1]

Hello,

I would like to create a german locale. Fortunately there ist already an italian and english locale, so most string are already outsourced in a json file.
Is there a suggested procedure to create a new locale?
What I have already done:

• manually added a new entry in Database Table "language" for DE
• created a new json file de_DE.json in folder locale on my server
  • the file is based on en_US.json and I replaced only some selected Strings manually
    -> It works, I can see my changed strings in the gui

This works fine for a handful Strings, but there are more than 3000 entries. Is there a default way? Any suggestions?
I'm a native german speaker.

[fabiodalez-dev]

Hi @schubichler1, great to hear you're working on a German locale!

What you've done so far (adding the DB entry + creating de_DE.json based on en_US.json) is exactly the right approach.

For the 3,000+ strings problem, I'd suggest using Claude or DeepL to do a first pass on the full en_US.json — just translate the values, not the keys. Then review and refine manually. Since you're a native speaker, the review pass should catch any awkward machine translations.

For translated routes (e.g. /katalog, /buch, /anmelden), you can edit them directly from Admin → Languages → de_DE → Edit Routes. This saves a routes_de_DE.json file automatically.

In the next release, new languages added from the admin panel will have their routes registered automatically — no code changes needed. Right now on the current version, the supported locales are hardcoded, so translated routes won't actually work until you update. In the meantime, the standard English/Italian routes will work fine for German users — only the UI text changes.

Let me know if you run into any issues!

[fabiodalez-dev]

To get you started, here is a machine-translated de_DE.json with all 4,009 strings:

Download de_DE.json

It was translated using Claude with the following conventions:

• Formal "Sie" throughout
• Library terminology: Ausleihe (loan), Vormerkung (reservation), Rückgabe (return), Exemplar (copy), Regal (shelf)
• All placeholders (%s, %d, _MAX_, etc.) and HTML tags preserved
• Technical terms (API, JSON, PHP, etc.) kept in English

This is a first draft — since you're a native speaker, I'd recommend reviewing it for accuracy and natural phrasing. Just place it in locale/de_DE.json on your server and it should work immediately.

[fabiodalez-dev]

If you review and refine this translation, I'd be happy to include it as an official language option in the Pinakes installer. Just let me know when you're happy with it — a PR or even just the final JSON file would work.

[schubichler1]

The translation from Claude is really good, I didn’t find anything I would like to have changed.
Just in some cases, italian strings appear in teh GUI, see attached screenshot. I could not figure out why

[fabiodalez-dev]

Hi @schubichler1,

Thanks for the feedback on the translation quality — glad to hear Claude did a good job!

I've identified the issue with the Italian strings in the GUI. The problem is in the DataTables component (the tables for books, loans, users, authors, publishers). The language selection was hardcoded to only support Italian and English — any other locale would fall back to Italian. So strings like "Mostra", "Elementi", "Cerca", "Visualizzazione", "Precedente", "Successivo" etc. were coming from the DataTables Italian language pack, not from the de_DE.json translation file.

I've added a full German DataTables language pack and fixed all admin tables to use a proper locale mapping. Unsupported locales will now fall back to English instead of Italian. German will be officially included as a supported language starting from the next release.

[fabiodalez-dev]

Update: Starting with v0.4.9.4 (just released), the Pinakes installer now fully supports German as an installation language.

The first step of the installer lets you choose between Italian, English, and German — and the de_DE.json translation file I shared above is bundled with the release. Once you select German during installation, all UI strings, route translations, and system messages will use the German locale by default.

You can grab the latest release here: https://github.com/fabiodalez-dev/Pinakes/releases/tag/v0.4.9.4

If you have any corrections or improvements to the German translations, feel free to submit them — I'll be happy to incorporate them in a future update.