How to translate pygtk; glade; gtk.Builder() application?

Question

This is my first trial in translating pygtk glade; I have created Rockdome.mo file on the following dir:./locale/ar/LC_MESSAGES/Rockdome.mo

    def apply_locale(self , lang):
         domain  = "Rockdome"
         local_path = basefolder+"/locale"   # basefolder is the current dir
         lang = gettext.translation('Rockdome', local_path ,  languages=['%s'%lang])
         lang.install()
         _ = lang.gettext
         print _("Close") # the output is اغلاق which is correct arabic translation!!

but the application still appear in the default system lamnguage EN; What I missing ??

EDIT

After searching in pygtk and buider tutoial; I found 2 methods to tell gtk & builder How to bring text : the first from here :

 for module in (gettext, gtk.glade):
     module.bindtextdomain(APP_NAME, LOCALE_DIR)
     module.textdomain(APP_NAME)

which fail.

The second from here

 self.builder.set_translation_domain('Rockdome')
 print self.builder.get_translation_domain() # the output is "Rockdome"

which also fail !!, the application still untranslated !!

N.B: I guess that builder needs to know the location for my local path to search in it not in the default paths so I copied ./local/ar/LC_MESSAGES/Rockdome.mo to /usr/share/locale/ar/LC_MESSAGES/Rockdome.mo which also failed.

Yes, the console output is correct arabic translation from *.mo file — esnadr, Jun 20 '14 at 05:35
You need to return `lang` at the moment you are just changing it in the function. — The_Cthulhu_Kid, Jun 20 '14 at 05:36
I added an answer =) Hope it helps. If it does we can delete the comments. — The_Cthulhu_Kid, Jun 20 '14 at 05:41
Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/55953/discussion-between-esnadr-and-the-cthulhu-kid). — esnadr, Jun 20 '14 at 05:44

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

the following method works succefully with me >

use locale module not gettext.
execute locale.setlocale(category , language )
Set the translation_domain of gtk.Builder by gtk.Builder.set_translation_domain() before loading glade file by : EX:gtk.Builder.add_from_file

Code ##

    import locale
    from locale import gettext as _

    def apply_locale(self , current_lang ):
        domain  = "Rockdome"
        local_path = basefolder+"/data/locale"
        locale.bindtextdomain(domain , local_path )
        locale.textdomain(domain)
        locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, 'ar_AE.utf8')   
        # note that language is "ar_AE.utf8" not "ar" or "ar_AE"
        self.builder.set_translation_domain(domain )

Why we should replace gettext with locale

Thanks to Juha Sahakangas on the #gtk+ IRC channel for providing the explanation: For this particular case the locale module needs to be used instead of gettext. Python's gettext module is pure python, it doesn't actually set the text domain in a way that the C library can read, but locale does (by calling libc). So long as that's done, GtkBuilder already works the way you're asking it to.

Notes

to avoid locale.Error: unsupported locale setting

In the function locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, language ); language should be one the supported languages.
to get list of supported languages; locale -a command.
The name of the language should be equal to its name in the output of the command locale -a; ie. don't strip the encode if it included in the language name, ie:. ar_AE.utf8 doesn't equal to ar_AE.
If the language doesn't supported; we can install it.
To install unsupported language:

sudo apt-get install language-pack-en-base

sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

Thanks for this links

how to make glade load translation

locale error : unsupported locale setting

locale module doc

install unsupported locale

In my installation 'locale' module doesn't have 'gettext'. I have a Windows7 machine, with Python 2.7.8. This snippet from `locale` doc explains why: `The locale module exposes the C library’s gettext interface on systems that provide this interface.` — Zvika, Sep 11 '14 at 04:08

The_Cthulhu_Kid · Answer 2 · 2014-06-20T05:48:47.187

You are only changing the lang object within the scope of the function. You have to return it to set it properly.

You need to call your function like this: my_lang = apply_locale(lang) or you could set lang as a property of the class.

def apply_locale(self , lang):
     domain  = "Rockdome"
     local_path = basefolder+"/locale"   # basefolder is the current dir
     lang = gettext.translation('Rockdome', local_path ,  languages=['%s'%lang])
     lang.install()
     _ = lang.gettext
     return lang  # Here you return the value and set it to the object you passed to your function.

Your use of the variable name here is confusing. You are changing the argument to a completely different type of object, you might want to differentiate between the two.

please, refer to the question; `self.builder.set_translationdomain() ` — esnadr, Jun 20 '14 at 13:39