Weblate terms glossary

If you are interested in contributing to LSTN, translating our materials through Weblate is a great place to start. Weblate was designed by a community of coders and programmers and is geared towards people who work in software development. Because of this, some of the terms used on the site can be unfamiliar to people outside of these spheres. This page attempts to demystify some of the jargon you may run into while using Weblate. If you would like to know more about how to use Weblate, check out our quickstart guide, and if there are any other terms you would like us to clarify, please do not hesitate to reach out and let us know.

  • Checks
    • Checks are automatic tests to make sure that the translations are high quality. If a translation has a check, it means that it may have issues and needs a second look. Sometimes there are false positives, and these can be overridden by the administrators of the project. If you see checks on your translations that you think are in error, please reach out to us and we will see what the issue is.
  • Component
    • Weblate defines components as "resources for the same software, book, or project." In the LSTN project, each component is a single chapter of the LSTN handbook.
  • Glossary
    • Every project on Weblate is automatically given a "Glossary" component. The glossary contains strings that may repeat throughout different components, and ensures that these strings will be consistently translated throughout the project. These can be partial strings; if a certain word or phrase is repeated a lot within a project, it can be helpful to add it to the glossary to make translating quicker or more consistent. Anyone can add terms to the glossary, feel free to use it as you see fit! You can find the LSTN glossary at the bottom of the project page.
  • NBS
    • Non-breaking space. This is a special type of space that ensures that there will not be a line break at that spot. A NBS is marked by a red rectangle in Weblate, and can be added to a translation using the "NBS" button on the visual keyboard.
  • RTL
    • Right-to-left script, as opposed to left-to-right. Languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Urdu are written right-to-left. RTL also sometimes includes languages that are written top-to-bottom then right-to-left, such as Chinese and Japanese, although these languages are often written left-to-right today. The acronym "TBRL" may be used for these languages instead.
  • String
    • A set of characters of any length. A string could be a word, a sentence, a paragraph, a single entry in a list, or anything else. In Weblate, users translate one string at a time.
  • Visual keyboard
    • A small row of language-specific punctuation characters shown above the translation field. It also includes characters that may not be on standard keyboards, such as the non-breaking space (NBS), n-dash, and m-dash.
Screenshot of Weblate translation page with visual keyboard highlighted
Weblate's "visual keyboard" outlined in red


Last updated: September 23, 2021
Written by: Allie Tatarian