LosminekandClaude Sonnet 5.5
819dc49c44
Upstream added German (de) in the meantime, in the same places where the Czech language is registered (module list, Language enum and ALL, name, code, tag parsing, translate, tests, theme font loop, control protocol list). Both languages kept, German first. contributors/people.toml, the ROADMAP and docs/localization-parity.md counters: all entries kept. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
5.7 KiB
Localization parity
Last reviewed: 2026-10-10 · Last updated: 2026-10-11 · Change: minor (German and Czech ribbon tables added) · Target: Microsoft Excel (Microsoft 365), Excel for Mac 16.113.4
Per-language status against Excel, which ships its UI in dozens of languages (Windows language packs cover 100+), with localized function names, argument separators, number and date formats, right-to-left sheets and full complex-script support. Part of target-app-parity.md. Localization: ~10% ready, 100–165 h (estimated).
Where we are (measured from source on main, after the 2026-10-10 merges)
- A first catalog exists, for the ribbon only.
crates/ui-egui/src/i18n.rs(merged 10-10 in #31, #104, #82; German added 10-11, Czech 10-11) adds an interface-language preference that defaults to the system language (closes #20) and a View-tab switcher, with English-keyed lookup tables: Japanese 268 labels, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, German and Czech 266 each. The tables are used by the ribbon, sheet tabs and widgets (ribbon.rs,tabs.rs,widgets.rs); dialogs, menus, context menus, task panes, status messages, command labels and function descriptions are still English literals. Untranslated labels fall back to English. - About 2,200 user-visible strings in all (heuristic source scan: ~1,700 UI and command strings plus ~500 function descriptions), so each shipped language covers ~12% (measured count / estimated total).
- en-US only formulas and formats. Function names,
,argument separator,.decimal separator, en-US number and date formats (crates/numfmtsays "en-US only"). Users ask for localized function names and;separators (#45). German with localized numbers and formulas is in PR #163 (open). - Script support. System-font fallback for CJK, Thai and Hebrew landed in #38 (closes #32;
#142 is still open pending confirmation). There is no complex-text shaping: Arabic and
Devanagari don't join or reorder, and there is no bidirectional layout. Sheet Right-to-Left
is a stored flag (
view.rightToLeft) but the grid doesn't mirror (#146). IME input goes through egui/winit and is unverified for Chinese, Japanese and Korean. - PDF export uses only the 14 standard PDF fonts: non-Latin text cannot export.
Languages
UI strings translated are measured counts against the ~2,200 estimate. Estimates to full
include the rest of the catalog work below (10–20 h, counted once), localized function names,
separators, number/date formats, machine translation with agent review, and script work.
| Language | Code | UI strings translated | Dialogs / tooltips / help | Script support | Native review | Status | Estimate to full |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | en | ~2,200 / ~2,200 (100%, source) | yes | Latin: yes | yes | full | — |
| Simplified Chinese (Mandarin) | zh-Hans | 266 (~12%) | no | CJK system-font fallback (#38); IME unverified; PDF can't export | no | menus only | 8–13 h |
| Spanish | es | 0 (0%) | no | Latin: yes | no | none | 6–10 h |
| Hindi | hi | 0 (0%) | no | Devanagari: no shaping | no | none | 12–18 h |
| Arabic | ar | 0 (0%) | no | no shaping, no RTL UI, RTL sheet flag not rendered (#146) | no | none | 25–35 h |
| French | fr | 0 (0%) | no | Latin: yes | no | none | 6–10 h |
| Portuguese | pt-BR | 266 (~12%) | no | Latin: yes | no | menus only | 4–8 h |
| Indonesian | id | 0 (0%) | no | Latin: yes | no | none | 5–8 h |
| Japanese | ja | 268 (~12%) | no | CJK system-font fallback; IME unverified; no furigana display | no | menus only | 8–12 h |
| German | de | 266 (~12%) | no | Latin: yes | no | menus only | 4–8 h |
| Korean | ko | 266 (~12%) | no | Hangul via the CJK fallback; IME unverified | no | menus only | 6–10 h |
| Vietnamese | vi | 0 (0%) | no | Latin with stacked diacritics: unverified | no | none | 6–10 h |
Other shipped languages: Russian (ru), German (de) and Czech (cs), 266 labels each (~12%), menus only. Czech
formulas stay en-US (no Czech function names, ; separator or decimal comma yet).
Total: catalog work 10–20 h + languages 92–144 h ≈ 100–165 h. Parallelizes almost fully once the catalog covers dialogs and commands. Needs a human: native-speaker review of every language (none so far) and of localized function names.
Infrastructure (do first)
- Extend the catalog from the ribbon to every user-visible string (dialogs, menus, task panes,
status and error messages, command labels, function descriptions), with a missing-key check
in
cargo xtask ci. Language switching and the system-language default already exist (#31). - Locale-aware formulas: localized function-name tables and separators at the formula-bar boundary only (files keep en-US invariant names), locale number and date formats, list separators in CSV.
- Text shaping and fallback: a shaping engine for grid, editor and PDF text (Arabic, Devanagari, Thai), system font fallback for CJK, bidirectional runs, and a real right-to-left sheet layout; embedded subset fonts in PDF.
Revision history
| Date | Change | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-11 | minor | German ribbon catalog (i18n/de.rs, 266 labels, ~12%); de locale tags (de-DE, de-AT, de-CH…) resolve to German. PR #163 (localized German formulas/numbers) still open |
| 2026-10-11 | minor | Czech (cs) ribbon table: 266 labels (~12%), menus only |
| 2026-10-10 | minor | Re-measured after #31, #104, #82, #38 merged: ribbon translated into ja, zh, ko, pt-BR and ru (266–268 labels, ~12%), system-language default, CJK/Thai/Hebrew font fallback; ~10% ready, 100–165 h |
| 2026-10-10 | major | Created: English only, no catalog, ~2,200 strings, script-support gaps, open language PRs |