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Every piece of text a product shows comes from a language file in its locales folder, one file per language. You can reword any text, and add a language the product does not ship, without waiting for an update.

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How a product picks its language

Each product works in one of two ways. Its configuration overview says which.

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Before you start

  • The language files are in the product’s folder, for example resources/[element]/element_3d_pausemenu/locales/en.json.
  • Keep a copy of every file you change. An update replaces them. See Update a product.

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Steps

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Choose the server’s language

For a product that uses one language for the server:
Each value is the name of a file in locales without .json: it means locales/it.json. Restart the resource to apply it.

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Choose the language players start in, and add the server’s own

For a product that follows each player’s game, configs/locales.jsonc holds what the game cannot offer: languages it does not have, such as Swedish, and the language a player sees before they have picked one.
Every player can still change the language from the product’s own settings. Their pick is kept on their own machine, for this server, and wins over default from then on, including when you change default later. Picking the language their game is in makes the product follow the game again. A language in extra changes only the product’s own text. The game has no Swedish to switch to, so its own menus stay in the language the game is set to. Each language in extra needs its file in locales, listed in fxmanifest.lua; see Add a language. Restart the resource to apply a change.

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Reword a piece of text

Open the file for the language players see and change the text after the colon. Keep the key, the quotes and the braces as they are:
Text can contain placeholders the product fills in, such as {count} or {name}. Keep them, with the same names. A renamed placeholder is replaced with nothing and leaves a gap in the sentence. Some text changes with a number:
# is the number. =0 matches exactly zero. one and other are chosen by the language’s grammar: Always keep other in a plural.

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Add a language

1

Copy a language file

Copy locales/en.json to a new file named after the language.For a product that follows the player’s game, use the game’s own name for one of its languages, so that players whose game is in it see it:Any other language is one of the server’s: name the file after it, such as sv.json for Swedish, and add it to extra in a later step.
2

Translate the text

Translate the text after each colon. Keep every key and every placeholder. A key you have not translated yet shows the fallback language, so a half-finished file is usable.
3

List the file in fxmanifest.lua

Add it to the files block in the product’s fxmanifest.lua, next to the language files already there:
Without this line the file never reaches players, and the language seems to do nothing.
4

Make it available, for a product that uses one language for the server

In configs/locales.jsonc, add it to available and, to use it, set active. available replaces the shipped list, so keep the languages already in it:
A product that follows the player’s game reads only extra and default there: skip this step for a game language.
5

Add it to extra, for a server language of a product that follows the player's game

In configs/locales.jsonc, add the file’s name and the name players see, and set default to it if players should start in it:
6

Restart the resource

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Check that it worked

Join the server and confirm the text is in the expected language everywhere, with no key names such as map.waypoint on screen and no gaps in sentences. Look at a screen that shows a count too, so the plural forms are covered.

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When text is missing

Text is looked up by its key in three places, in order:
  1. the language the player sees;
  2. the fallback language: English for a product that follows the player’s game, fallback for one that uses one language for the server;
  3. nowhere: the key itself appears on screen, for example map.waypoint.
A key name on screen means a key is missing from the fallback language too. Keep the fallback language complete: it fills every gap in every other language. A language file that cannot be read, because of a syntax error, yields no text at all, and every key falls back. The console says so once:
The usual cause is a comma after the last entry or a missing quote. Language files are plain JSON, not .jsonc like configuration files: leave comments out of them. For a product that follows each player’s game, an entry that cannot work is left out and the console says why, once per start:
The other entries still apply. The messages are listed in Console messages. For a product that uses one language for the server, two choices fail without a message:
  • an active that is not in available uses fallback instead;
  • a fallback that is not in available uses the first language in available.
More symptoms and their fixes are in Text is wrong or missing.