Collect translated messages from other applications.

1. Add application collectmessages to INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py:

   INSTALLED_APPS = (
       ...
   
       'collectmessages',
   
       ...
   )

2. Add the following options to settings.py:

   COLLECTMESSAGES_PATH

   The path of the locale directory where the generated translation files will be placed. This option is required.

   COLLECTMESSAGES_LANGUAGES

   A list of language codes. Translation files will be generated for each code. This option is required.

   COLLECTMESSAGES_FINDERS

   A list of message finders. Each message finder returns a sequence of translated messages for the translation files. This option is required.

   COLLECTMESSAGES_METADATA

   A dictionary with the metadata for the PO-files. This setting is optional.

   Example:

   COLLECTMESSAGES_PATH = "collected/locale"
   COLLECTMESSAGES_LANGUAGES = ("en", "nl")
   COLLECTMESSAGES_FINDERS = (
       "firstexampleapp.messages.MessageFinder",
       "secondexampleapp.messages.MessageFinder",
   )
   COLLECTMESSAGES_METADATA = {
       "Project-Id-Version": "1.0",
       "Report-Msgid-Bugs-To": "john.doe@example.com",
       "POT-Creation-Date": "2007-10-18 14:00+0100",
       "PO-Revision-Date": "2007-10-18 14:00+0100",
       "Last-Translator": "John Doe <john.doe@example.com>",
       "Language-Team": "Translations <translations@example.com>",
       "MIME-Version": "1.0",
       "Content-Type": "text/plain; charset=utf-8",
       "Content-Transfer-Encoding": "8bit",
   }

3. Add COLLECTMESSAGES_PATH to LOCALE_PATHS in settings.py:

   LOCALE_PATHS = (
       ...
   
       "collected/locale",
   
       ...
   )

4. Use the custom command collect_messages to generate the translation files:

   $ python django-manage.py collect_messages

   This command has the following options:

   -c, --compile Compile the PO-files. -t, --pot-file Create a POT-file. -s, --verbose Show more information.

5. Create custom message finders by subclassing BaseMessageFinder and customizing method find():

   from collectmessages.finders import BaseMessageFinder
   from polib import POEntry
   
   
   class MessageFinder(BaseMessageFinder):
   
       def find(self, language=None):
           ...

   Method find() returns a sequence of POEntry objects with the translated messages. It takes one (optional) parameter language. If given, this parameter has the language code for the translated messages. If not given, find() should return POEntry objects for a POT-file, with an empty translated string.

• Bert Vanderbauwhede <bert.vanderbauwhede@ugent.be>, Author