r18r

This is an R package to help translating other packages - with heavy focus on marking terms in a package for translation along with comments for the translators.

Why the name?

i18n is the standard shorthand for internationalization (starting with "i", having 18 chars and then ending with "n"), but it sounds like an Apple product, and an R package really needs many more R letters .. so we changed both the starting and ending letters to "r". And did you know which is the 18th letter of the English alphabet? Right, it's "R".

How to pronounce? Well, as per above, "rrr" sounds tempting, but since the "1" in the logo looks like the letter "l" and "8" can be read out as "ate", "r18r" should be pronounced just like the English "relator" word: "a person who relates or tells; narrator".

Install

Since the r18r package has been just open-sourced and we are still finishing up the API changes due to generalization of the already existing internal features, it is currently only available on GitHub, and can be installed via the remotes package:

library(remotes)
install_github('rx-stud-io/r18r')

Quick demo

Load the package:

library(r18r)

Load the PO files of the package:

translations_import(po_folder('r18r'), 'r18r')

Set the default language to be used in future translations:

translate_set_language('en', 'r18r')

Translate a term:

translate('Text to be translated', ns = 'r18r')

Using r18r in other packages

1. Use the translatable or T helpers to mark terms in your package to be translated.
2. Run translations_generate to extract the above terms and generate your POT and PO files.
3. Run translations_import to import your PO files into an r18r namespace (default to using your package name as the ns) and pick a default language with translate_set_language as part of your .onLoad function.
4. Use the translate function in your package to return messages in the supported languages, generate localized plots etc.

For an example implementation, check out the r18r.example package's zzz.R file for init and example.R for a translation call.

Acknowledgements

This package was heavily inspired by previous work of others, so expressing my gratitude to

• Michael Chirico for potools and driving the recent translation efforts around R, including the awesome tutorial at useR! 2021.
• Michael Lawrence for maintaining and managing translations in R Core.
• Heather Turner and Saranjeet Kaur for the Collaboration Campfires series on "Learn how to contribute to R!", including the overview on R's process for localization and "How to Contribute to a Translation Team".
• The authors of the hexSticker R package (for the awesome tool generating hex logos), vecteezy.com (for the world map sketch image), and Tart Workshop (for the "Fredericka the Great" font) in the creation of package logo.
• Rx Studio Inc. for sponsoring the internal development and the open-sourcing efforts of this project.