Feature suggestion: Multilingual support

[Svardsten53]

I really like this new version with all the new interesting features!
I have worked with BirdNET-Pi since the beginning when McGuire started the project and had some opinions on how the program should be designed.
On my own, I have made a routine that translates and adapts the user interface to Swedish. Unfortunately, this will be difficult with the technology you are using now, but it might be possible to build in language support now that Claude is doing a lot of the programming. My adaptation is used by several users in Sweden, including a couple of Bird Observatories, and I have also done translations for most of the European languages, see https://github.com/Svardsten53/Translate/tree/main
What I would like is the following:

• Multilingual support for the open user interface (not needed for the tools menu).
• Adaptation to national Wikipedia links.
• Metric indications of temperature (Celsius), wind speed (m/s), time (24h), number system (decimal point is comma) and so on.

There are many users in Europe who would certainly appreciate this. Even though most of them understand English, it would be nicer if the presentation was in their own language and it would also help those who don't speak English.

I also have ideas for some other additions, but I'll report them in separate discussions.

Thanks!

[zach7036]

Thanks! I just shipped a few of these things in v2.2.0, v2.2.1, and v2.3.0. I've listed what was added below:

Shipped in v2.2.0: Celsius, km/h, m/s, and 24-hour time are now in Settings → Display & Units. These apply across the whole UI.

Shipped in v2.2.1: localized Wikipedia links. Every Wikipedia link now follows DATABASE_LANG — the same setting that localizes species names — so a station set to Swedish links to sv.wikipedia.org, and the scientific-name URL redirects to the local article automatically. Nothing to configure; if your language is already set, the links follow it after updating.

Shipped in v2.3.0: number formatting. Settings → Display & Units now has a Number format dropdown with 1,234.5, 1.234,5, and 1 234,5 styles, applied to every count and percentage across the UI. Like the other display settings it's fully reversible, and CSV exports keep machine format so eBird imports and scripts aren't affected.

That covers everything from this list except the big one. On the roadmap for the future, and is probably further out: full UI translation. That needs a proper string-table layer through every page — a large refactor I'd want to make sure that I did right rather than fast. But your existing translations at Svardsten53/Translate would be an enormous head start, and I can definitely check to see if I can wire them in.

[Svardsten53]

Thank you!

[manuematic]

Hi zach7036,
maybe i can add something to the full UI translation: I am a programmer but also got Claude into my team a year ago which empowered my work a lot. I started to include a translation framework with language files and and did the "Today" page and the Headlines of the Basic Settings as a Proof of Concept. At the moment just between English and German but adding new language files might be easy. I have an online demo where you can see this PoC if you like or do you prefer a pull request with my zip file including my changes to the version which was from July, 16th. You can contact me for the URL of the PoC at manuemedia@gmail.com