Language Support

Language Support

The GVA HMI supports full multi-language UI translation via Qt's internationalization (i18n) framework. All user-facing text — function key labels, status bar indicators, alarm messages, and widget strings — is translatable, enabling deployment to international customers without code changes.

GVA HMI in French

Overview

The translation system uses Qt's standard .qm compiled translation files. At startup, the HMI resolves the active language from (in priority order) the command line, the configuration file, or the system locale, then loads the corresponding translation files.

Two translation domains are loaded independently:

  • gva-hmi_<lang>.qm — Application-level strings (function key labels, screen titles, status messages)
  • gva-widgets_<lang>.qm — Widget library strings (table headers, alarm text, PPI labels)

Supported Languages

Language Code Flag
English en :gb: (default, built-in)
Czech cs :czech_republic:
German de :de:
Greek el :greece:
Spanish es :es:
Finnish fi :finland:
French fr :fr:
Italian it :it:
Norwegian Bokmål nb :norway:
Dutch nl :netherlands:
Polish pl :poland:
Swedish sv :sweden:
Turkish tr :tr:
Ukrainian ua :ukraine:

Setting the Language

Command Line (Highest Priority)

./build/bin/gva-hmi --language=fr
./build/bin/gva-hmi -l de

Configuration File

Set the "language" key in gva-hmi-config.json:

{
    "language": "es"
}

System Locale (Lowest Priority)

If no explicit language is configured, the HMI reads the system LANG or LC_ALL environment variable:

# System locale drives language selection
export LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
./build/bin/gva-hmi
# → Resolves to "de" (German)

The two-letter language code is extracted from the locale string (e.g. fr_FR.UTF-8 → fr).

Priority Order

CLI --language flag  >  Config file "language"  >  System LANG/LC_ALL

Translation Search Paths

The HMI searches for .qm translation files in the following locations (first match wins):

Priority Path Typical Use
1 <executable_dir>/translations/ Development builds
2 <executable_dir>/../share/gva-hmi/translations/ Installed packages (relative)
3 /usr/share/gva-hmi/translations/ System-wide installation
4 :/translations Qt resource system (embedded)

Examples

French HMI with Default Theme

./build/bin/gva-hmi --language=fr

All function keys display translated labels: "Menaces" (Threats), "Alarmes" (Alarms), "Entrée" (Enter), etc.

Spanish HMI with Astute Blue Theme

./build/bin/gva-hmi --language=es --theme=blue

Astute Blue with Spanish

Italian HMI with Android Theme

./build/bin/gva-hmi -l it -t android

Android with Italian

Ukrainian HMI with High Contrast

./build/bin/gva-hmi --language=ua --theme=high-contrast

High Contrast with Ukrainian

Configuration File Example

A complete configuration combining language, theme, and streams:

{
    "language": "fr",
    "theme": "blue",
    "streams": [
        {"name": "Front Camera", "url": "rtp://239.192.1.1:5004"}
    ]
}

Adding New Languages

To add support for a new language:

  1. Create a .ts source file using Qt Linguist or lupdate:

    cd src/qt6/gva-hmi
lupdate . -ts translations/gva-hmi_<lang>.ts

  2. Translate strings in Qt Linguist — open the .ts file and provide translations for each source string.

  3. Compile to .qm binary format:

    lrelease translations/gva-hmi_<lang>.ts

  4. Deploy the resulting gva-hmi_<lang>.qm file to one of the search paths listed above.

  5. Repeat for the widgets library (gva-widgets_<lang>.ts) if widget-level strings need translation.

See Also