1*mlang.txt* For Vim version 8.2. Last change: 2020 Aug 15 2 3 4 VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar 5 6 7Multi-language features *multilang* *multi-lang* 8 9This is about using messages and menus in various languages. For editing 10multibyte text see |multibyte|. 11 12The basics are explained in the user manual: |usr_45.txt|. 13 141. Messages |multilang-messages| 152. Menus |multilang-menus| 163. Scripts |multilang-scripts| 17 18Also see |help-translated| for multi-language help. 19 20{not available when compiled without the |+multi_lang| feature} 21 22============================================================================== 231. Messages *multilang-messages* 24 25Vim picks up the locale from the environment. In most cases this means Vim 26will use the language that you prefer, unless it's not available. 27 28To see a list of supported locale names on your system, look in one of these 29directories (for Unix): 30 /usr/lib/locale ~ 31 /usr/share/locale ~ 32Unfortunately, upper/lowercase differences matter. Also watch out for the 33use of "-" and "_". 34 35 *:lan* *:lang* *:language* *E197* 36:lan[guage] 37:lan[guage] mes[sages] 38:lan[guage] cty[pe] 39:lan[guage] tim[e] 40:lan[guage] col[late] 41 Print the current language (aka locale). 42 With the "messages" argument the language used for 43 messages is printed. Technical: LC_MESSAGES. 44 With the "ctype" argument the language used for 45 character encoding is printed. Technical: LC_CTYPE. 46 With the "time" argument the language used for 47 strftime() is printed. Technical: LC_TIME. 48 With the "collate" argument the language used for 49 collation order is printed. Technical: LC_COLLATE. 50 Without argument all parts of the locale are printed 51 (this is system dependent). 52 The current language can also be obtained with the 53 |v:lang|, |v:ctype|, |v:collate| and |v:lc_time| 54 variables. 55 56:lan[guage] {name} 57:lan[guage] mes[sages] {name} 58:lan[guage] cty[pe] {name} 59:lan[guage] tim[e] {name} 60:lan[guage] col[late] {name} 61 Set the current language (aka locale) to {name}. 62 The locale {name} must be a valid locale on your 63 system. Some systems accept aliases like "en" or 64 "en_US", but some only accept the full specification 65 like "en_US.ISO_8859-1". On Unix systems you can use 66 this command to see what locales are supported: > 67 :!locale -a 68< With the "messages" argument the language used for 69 messages is set. This can be different when you want, 70 for example, English messages while editing Japanese 71 text. This sets $LC_MESSAGES. 72 With the "ctype" argument the language used for 73 character encoding is set. This affects the libraries 74 that Vim was linked with. It's unusual to set this to 75 a different value from 'encoding' or "C". This sets 76 $LC_CTYPE. 77 With the "time" argument the language used for time 78 and date messages is set. This affects strftime(). 79 This sets $LC_TIME. 80 With the "collate" argument the language used for the 81 collation order is set. This affects sorting of 82 characters. This sets $LC_COLLATE. 83 Without an argument all are set, and additionally 84 $LANG is set. 85 When compiled with the |+float| feature the LC_NUMERIC 86 value will always be set to "C", so that floating 87 point numbers use '.' as the decimal point. 88 This will make a difference for items that depend on 89 the language (some messages, time and date format). 90 Not fully supported on all systems 91 If this fails there will be an error message. If it 92 succeeds there is no message. Example: > 93 :language 94 Current language: C 95 :language de_DE.ISO_8859-1 96 :language mes 97 Current messages language: de_DE.ISO_8859-1 98 :lang mes en 99< 100 101MS-WINDOWS MESSAGE TRANSLATIONS *win32-gettext* 102 103If you used the self-installing .exe file, message translations should work 104already. Otherwise get the libintl.dll file if you don't have it yet: 105 106 http://sourceforge.net/projects/gettext 107Or: 108 https://mlocati.github.io/gettext-iconv-windows/ 109 110This also contains tools xgettext, msgformat and others. 111 112libintl.dll should be placed in same directory as (g)vim.exe, or one of the 113directories listed in the PATH environment value. Vim also looks for the 114alternate names "libintl-8.dll" and "intl.dll". 115 116Message files (vim.mo) have to be placed in "$VIMRUNTIME/lang/xx/LC_MESSAGES", 117where "xx" is the abbreviation of the language (mostly two letters). 118 119If you write your own translations you need to generate the .po file and 120convert it to a .mo file. You need to get the source distribution and read 121the file "src/po/README.txt". 122 123To overrule the automatic choice of the language, set the $LANG variable to 124the language of your choice. use "en" to disable translations. > 125 126 :let $LANG = 'ja' 127 128(text for Windows by Muraoka Taro) 129 130============================================================================== 1312. Menus *multilang-menus* 132 133See |45.2| for the basics, esp. using 'langmenu'. 134 135Note that if changes have been made to the menus after the translation was 136done, some of the menus may be shown in English. Please try contacting the 137maintainer of the translation and ask him to update it. You can find the 138name and e-mail address of the translator in 139"$VIMRUNTIME/lang/menu_<lang>.vim". 140 141To set the font (or fontset) to use for the menus, use the |:highlight| 142command. Example: > 143 144 :highlight Menu font=k12,r12 145 146 147ALIAS LOCALE NAMES 148 149Unfortunately, the locale names are different on various systems, even though 150they are for the same language and encoding. If you do not get the menu 151translations you expected, check the output of this command: > 152 153 echo v:lang 154 155Now check the "$VIMRUNTIME/lang" directory for menu translation files that use 156a similar language. A difference in a "-" being a "_" already causes a file 157not to be found! Another common difference to watch out for is "iso8859-1" 158versus "iso_8859-1". Fortunately Vim makes all names lowercase, thus you 159don't have to worry about case differences. Spaces are changed to 160underscores, to avoid having to escape them. 161 162If you find a menu translation file for your language with a different name, 163create a file in your own runtime directory to load that one. The name of 164that file could be: > 165 166 ~/.vim/lang/menu_<v:lang>.vim 167 168Check the 'runtimepath' option for directories which are searched. In that 169file put a command to load the menu file with the other name: > 170 171 runtime lang/menu_<other_lang>.vim 172 173 174TRANSLATING MENUS 175 176If you want to do your own translations, you can use the |:menutrans| command, 177explained below. It is recommended to put the translations for one language 178in a Vim script. For a language that has no translation yet, please consider 179becoming the maintainer and make your translations available to all Vim users. 180Send an e-mail to the Vim maintainer <[email protected]>. 181 182 *:menut* *:menutrans* *:menutranslate* 183:menut[ranslate] clear 184 Clear all menu translations. 185 186:menut[ranslate] {english} {mylang} 187 Translate menu name {english} to {mylang}. All 188 special characters like "&" and "<Tab>" need to be 189 included. Spaces and dots need to be escaped with a 190 backslash, just like in other |:menu| commands. 191 Case in {english} is ignored. 192 193See the $VIMRUNTIME/lang directory for examples. 194 195To try out your translations you first have to remove all menus. This is how 196you can do it without restarting Vim: > 197 :source $VIMRUNTIME/delmenu.vim 198 :source <your-new-menu-file> 199 :source $VIMRUNTIME/menu.vim 200 201Each part of a menu path is translated separately. The result is that when 202"Help" is translated to "Hilfe" and "Overview" to "Überblick" then 203"Help.Overview" will be translated to "Hilfe.Überblick". 204 205============================================================================== 2063. Scripts *multilang-scripts* 207 208In Vim scripts you can use the |v:lang| variable to get the current language 209(locale). The default value is "C" or comes from the $LANG environment 210variable. 211 212The following example shows how this variable is used in a simple way, to make 213a message adapt to language preferences of the user, > 214 215 :if v:lang =~ "de_DE" 216 : echo "Guten Morgen" 217 :else 218 : echo "Good morning" 219 :endif 220< 221 222 vim:tw=78:sw=4:ts=8:noet:ft=help:norl: 223