Omarchy internationalization: current status and directions

[komagata]

Omarchy internationalization: current status and directions by area

Internationalizing Omarchy involves more than translating the UI. It also includes documentation, input methods, fonts, locale behavior, and other areas. This work cannot be completed by one language community or a small team alone; it requires people who understand different languages and regions to collaborate.

The purpose of this discussion is to give those people an overview, help them find an area where they can contribute, and identify what still needs to be discussed.

Below is a summary of the current status, direction, main options, and related proposals for each area. These areas can progress independently. Detailed technical discussions will be kept on separate pages or discussions and linked from here.

I hope this can serve as a shared starting point for Omarchy internationalization. If anything is missing or inaccurate, please let us know in the replies.

1. UI translation

Scope: Text displayed by Omarchy, including menus, settings, notifications, and commands.
Current status: The UI is in English and there is no official translation system. However, several proposals and proofs of concept have explored how translation could work.
Current direction: DHH has clearly stated that the UI should currently remain in English. This does not necessarily rule out translation in the future.

Main options:

• Keep the UI in English only
• Allow optional community-maintained language packs
• Officially support multiple languages in Omarchy

Related:

• #6988: Keep the calendar's day names in English
• #8765: Proposal for a localization framework
• #10051: Load Qt translations from an external QML module
• #10083: Runtime i18n with system gettext catalogs
• Quickshell #445: Plans for translation support

2. Documentation translation

Scope: The README, manual, installation guides, and other documentation.
Current status: Official documentation is in English, and there is no agreed process for maintaining translations.
Current direction: There is no clear consensus yet. If translations are introduced, keeping the English version canonical is one possible approach.

Main options:

• Maintain translations in the main repository
• Maintain them in a separate repository
• Use an external documentation or translation platform

Related:

• falser101/omarchy #1: Chinese localization feasible plan

3. Input methods

Scope: Entering and converting text in languages such as Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.
Current status: Fcitx5 is already installed, but language-specific input engines are not configured. For example, Japanese input does not work out of the box.
Current direction: Proposals are exploring ways to make language-specific input easy to add, independently of UI translation and locale settings. No approach has been adopted yet.

Main options:

• Document the setup process
• Provide setup actions that add language-specific engines to Fcitx5
• Include input-language choices in the installer or region settings

Related:

• #9695: Add a Setup > Region toggle with Chinese language and input method
• #9634: Add one-step Japanese input setup
• #6398: Supervise fcitx5 so XCompose sequences can't silently die
• #2376: Japanese input setup using Fcitx5 and Mozc
• #7559: Fcitx5/Mozc candidate window is misplaced

4. Fonts and text rendering

Scope: Non-Latin scripts, emoji, right-to-left text, font fallback, and related rendering behavior.
Current status: Fonts such as Noto CJK are installed, but the wrong regional glyph variants may still be selected.
Current direction: Proposals and fixes are improving the selection of appropriate fallback fonts for each language.

Main options:

• Improve the default font fallback configuration
• Document any additional fonts users may need
• Provide optional language-specific font packs

Related:

• #9693: Pick the matching Noto CJK variant for language-tagged text
• #9580: CJK font fallback always selects Korean variant regardless of locale
• #6377: Fix Arabic falling back to Nastaliq in Chromium and Electron apps

5. Locale and regional settings

Scope: Dates, times, measurement units, the first day of the week, and other region-dependent behavior.
Current status: Omarchy currently mixes fixed English output, behavior based on the system locale, and user-configurable settings.
Current direction: A distinction has emerged in which UI wording remains English while regional conventions may follow the locale or an explicit user preference.

Main options:

• Follow the system locale for regional behavior
• Provide Omarchy-specific settings
• Decide case by case whether something is language or regional behavior

Related:

• #6988: Keep the calendar's day names in English
• #6994: Format the whole speed test dial for the locale

We would like your input

Which of these areas matter for your language or region? Please tell us what currently does not work, which direction you prefer, and where you might be able to help.

Detailed research and technical options can be documented separately for each area and linked from this discussion.

[Atroci]

A simple place to start might be a PT-BR version of the README, separate from the larger runtime i18n question.

I checked the current quattro branch and found the English README and the 51-chapter English manual, but no translation in the repo. I would be happy to prepare a README.pt-BR.md, keeping commands, links, product names, and code blocks unchanged, and add a link from the English README. The English version would remain canonical, so it would be easy to see when the translation is out of date.

Would that be useful as a small upstream PR, or would you prefer community translations to live in separate repositories for now?

[reustle]

I'm curious how multi-language READMEs are ideally handled in the LLM era, or if it hasn't changed at all.

Is it best to request that any README changing PR to also include the change in all languages within the same PR?

Or, to just provide the README in a single language and allow users to translate it to whatever language they please?

[komagata]

That might be enough to resolve the issue with the manual for now.

https://x.com/dhh/status/2097019916016615529

[Atroci]

That might be enough to resolve the issue with the manual for now.

https://x.com/dhh/status/2097019916016615529

no portuguese