Languages (i18n)

Prism's interface can be shown in a language other than English. Pick one under Settings → Appearance → Language; the choice is saved per install and applies to everyone using that dashboard.

English is always the fallback. Any string a translation hasn't covered yet renders in English rather than breaking or showing a raw key, so a partial translation is perfectly usable.

Status: in progress

Translation is being done in stages. The table below is the live picture of what is and isn't translated yet.

Available languages

Language	Code	Maintainer
English	en	built in (source language)
Deutsch	de	community

What's translated

Area	Status
Navigation (sidebar, portrait nav, mobile nav)	✅ done
Common actions (Save, Cancel, Delete, …)	✅ keys ready
Birthdays widget	✅ done
Calendar - views, toolbar, widget, add/edit event form	✅ done
Chores — widget + page	⬜ to do
Meals — widget + page	⬜ to do
Messages — widget + page	⬜ to do
Photos — widget + page	⬜ to do
Shopping — widget + page	⬜ to do
Tasks — widget + page	⬜ to do
Travel — widget + page	⬜ to do
Wishes — widget + page	⬜ to do
Clock / Weather widgets	✅ done
Points / Bus widgets	⬜ to do
Settings pages	⬜ to do
Setup wizard	⬜ to do

Widgets and their matching pages are translated together so the same wording is used in both places.

Dates, times and numbers

Dates and numbers already follow the selected language automatically — a German dashboard shows 24. Dez. rather than Dec 24. That covers the order of the parts as well as their names: a German calendar header reads 4. September 2026, not September 4, 2026. Day-first order isn't something a translation file can express, so date labels are built from the language rather than from a fixed pattern in the code.

12- vs 24-hour time is a separate setting, under Settings → General. It is deliberately independent of language, so you can run an English interface with a 24-hour clock or the reverse. Choosing Deutsch does not switch the clock for you.

Adding or correcting a translation

Translations are plain JSON files, one per language, in src/i18n/messages/. No app code is involved and you cannot break the interface by editing them: any key you leave out simply falls back to English.

To fix a wording or fill something in:

1. Open src/i18n/messages/de.json (or the file for your language) on GitHub.
2. Edit the value on the right of the colon. Leave the key on the left alone — that is what the app looks up.
3. Open a pull request.

{
  "common": {
    "nav": {
      "chores": "Hausarbeiten"
    }
  }
}

A first-time contributor is asked to sign the Contributor License Agreement automatically on their pull request. It is a one-line comment and only needs doing once.

Adding a whole new language

1. Copy src/i18n/messages/en.json to src/i18n/messages/<code>.json.
2. Translate the values, leaving the keys untouched.
3. Register it in src/components/providers/LocaleProvider.tsx — import the file and add an entry to APP_LOCALES with the language's own name for itself (Deutsch, not German).
4. Open a pull request.

Partial translations are welcome. Untranslated keys fall back to English, so there is no need to finish a language before contributing it.