Valve Developer Community:Alternative Languages

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This page is a reference on having alternative languages here on the Valve Developer Community. Translating the page you want should be simple if you are fluent in a language. This article does not go into depth in translation of articles.

For information on how to add a new language, see the language checklist.

Titles

It is important that all page names contain only ASCII characters; otherwise, the pages aren't handled correctly by the database.

For pages using {{MultiPage}} (Deprecated)

The title for a translated page (called "language subpages") should be the English name followed by a forward slash (/) and the abbreviation (usually ISO_639-1) for the language. This includes English. The root page should only have {{MultiPage}} and categories. An correct title is Half-Life 2/en. Language subpages should have the {{Language subpage}} template at the top followed by the body text for the article. Remember, categories go on the root page only, not the subpages.

For pages using {{Lang}} (Don't use currently)

The name of a translated page should put the English name first, followed by a colon (:), followed by the abbreviation described in {{Lang}}'s documentation (which is not always the language's ISO_639-1 and ISO_639-2 abbreviation). An example of a proper page name is Help:Contents:ru. It is not a problem to use non-English text in the pages themselves, but the name of the page cannot contain any non-English, non-ASCII characters.

English pages are usually the originals (with the exception of MultiPage having the /en page, but the main page itself always have the original English language), and there is no :en tag on them.

There are a number of ways to change how a page title will appear to readers without affecting the URL.

• {{MultiPage}}: This is being deprecated. Do not use this if possible!
• {{Lang}}: This is slowly being deprecated and replaced by MultiPage. Only should be used if other language templates doesn't work properly. Do not use this if possible!
• {{This is a}} (The series of templates such as {{base point}} are deprecated), which are used on entity articles, material shader articles, console command/variable articles, etc.
• {{DISPLAYTITLE:title}} - This is not a template, rather a magic word to change the page title to whatever you want. All the templates listed use this internally. This should only be used in rare scenarios where all other methods fail, but is still preferred before lang.

Linking to Pages in Another Language

Do not try to use {{Lang}} or {{MultiPage}} when creating new pages.

{{Lang}} and {{MultiPage}} are gradually approaching the roles of deprecated templates.

Templates

Using {{Autolang}} and {{Uselangflags}}

{{Autolang}} will change the contents according to your language of the interface. There are some strings subpages in some templates (such as {{Software page}}), and the translations are in them. All the strings subpages use this template internally.

See the documentation of the template for its usage. Alternatively, check the source code of pages that have already used this template to learn how to use it.

Using {{Lang}} (deprecated)

Deprecated:Only use this sparingly if other translation template isn't working on certain templates at the moment, eventually there will be somebody able to properly fix it and properly use the {{Autolang}} template, to the point that {{Lang}} isn't needed anymore.

Templates containing text visible on content pages should have that text translated into the translated page's language before the page is considered finished. Any documentation on the template should also be translated.

Templates without visible text may also have their documentation translated. If the template itself is identical to the English one however, the "translated" template should not be used on pages, because then if one version of the template is changed, it creates a needless hassle to change other versions as well, even though the templates are identical.

Categories

Categories are needed to be separated by language. If you want translations for categories page, follow the method of translating pages.

Language Checklist

Every language on the wiki should have:

• An icon of a flag representative of the language

Tip:Most of the flags currently on the wiki seem to come from SteamCommunity flags

• Proper addition to {{MultiPage}}
• A category page translated using {{MultiPage}} or {{Autolang}}

Important:DO NOT create a separate template for the flag such as Template:en, these are leftovers from {{Lang}}

• Translations for all the pages in the left sidebar:
  • Main Page
  • SDK Docs
  • Help:Contents
  • Category:Source SDK FAQ
  • Category:Level Design FAQ
• An addition to {{uselangflags}}}}
• Translations for the {{dictionary}}
• A dictionary of common/technical terms and their translations.
• Translations of some commonly used templates
• Optionally, you can add translations of other language names to {{language name}}

Todo: More?

Final Notes

This guide is not definitive, but it makes things much simpler when everyone follows one method of translating content, so everything in the wiki stays consistent throughout languages.

Please fully translate pages. A page partially in another language is simply not helpful for readers who only know one language.

If a page has received an important update, translations of the page should be marked with {{Updatetranslation}}.

See also

• {{Translate}}