Help translate postext docs & UI to more languages

[drnachio]

Overview

postext currently ships with documentation and UI in English and Spanish. We would love to offer it in more languages, and this is a great opportunity for first-time contributors to help out — no deep knowledge of the codebase is required, just fluency in the target language.

What needs translating

There are two separate surfaces, and you can tackle either one (or both) independently.

1. Documentation (MDX)

Location: docs/

The source files follow the naming pattern <topic>-<lang>.mdx. For a new language xx, each of these English files needs a sibling *-xx.mdx:

• introduction-en.mdx
• justification-en.mdx
• architecture-en.mdx
• document-format-en.mdx
• configuration-en.mdx
• sandbox-en.mdx
• contributing-en.mdx

You can take the Spanish versions (*-es.mdx) as a reference for tone and length.

2. Web app UI (next-intl messages)

Location: apps/web/messages/

Currently en.json and es.json (~617 lines each). For a new language xx, copy en.json to xx.json and translate the values (never the keys). Then add the locale code to apps/web/src/i18n/routing.ts.

Priority languages

We would especially welcome translations into:

• 🇨🇳 Chinese (Simplified) — zh-CN
• 🇫🇷 French — fr
• 🇩🇪 German — de
• 🇧🇷 Portuguese (Brazil) — pt-BR
• 🇯🇵 Japanese — ja
• 🇮🇹 Italian — it
• 🇷🇺 Russian — ru
• 🇰🇷 Korean — ko
• 🇸🇦 Arabic — ar (RTL — extra care needed)
• 🇮🇳 Hindi — hi

Other languages are welcome too — just comment on this issue before starting so we can coordinate.

How to contribute

1. Comment on this issue with the language(s) you want to tackle and whether you'll do docs, UI, or both. This avoids duplicated work.
2. Fork the repo and create a branch: git checkout -b i18n/<lang>.
3. Add your translated files following the conventions above.
4. Open a separate PR per language (one PR can cover both docs and UI for that language).
5. In the PR description, mention you are a native / fluent speaker of the language, or note if you relied on machine translation + manual review.

Guidelines for translators

• Keep technical terms in English when they are widely used as-is (e.g., VDT, MDX, IndexedDB, React, Tailwind). Don't over-translate.
• Preserve all Markdown / MDX syntax, code fences, component imports, and frontmatter keys. Only translate human-readable text.
• Don't translate JSON keys in messages/*.json — only string values.
• Match the tone of the existing English docs: clear, friendly, pragmatic. Not overly formal.
• Placeholders like {name}, {count} inside translations must be kept verbatim.
• If something in the English source is unclear or looks wrong, flag it in your PR — translators often spot ambiguity that authors miss.

Acceptance criteria per language

• All seven docs/*-<lang>.mdx files added
• apps/web/messages/<lang>.json added with every key from en.json translated
• Locale added to apps/web/src/i18n/routing.ts
• App builds locally (pnpm build) without i18n warnings
• Reviewed by another speaker of the language when possible

Thanks in advance to everyone who helps make postext accessible to more people. 🙌

[snakefood3232]

I see you're looking to translate postext docs and UI into more languages. I'd handle this by creating translations for both documentation and UI in the priority languages, starting with Simplified Chinese and French. I can have a pull request ready in 3 days. I've worked extensively with multilingual applications, ensuring accurate translations and smooth integrations with next-intl.

[snakefood3232]

I see you're looking to translate postext's docs and UI into more languages. I'd handle this by translating the documentation and UI strings into French (fr). I can create the corresponding *-fr.mdx files for the documentation and a fr.json for the UI, ensuring consistency with existing English and Spanish versions. I can have a PR up in 3 days. I've translated UI components in complex multilingual applications before.

[drnachio]

I see you're looking to translate postext's docs and UI into more languages. I'd handle this by translating the documentation and UI strings into French (fr). I can create the corresponding *-fr.mdx files for the documentation and a fr.json for the UI, ensuring consistency with existing English and Spanish versions. I can have a PR up in 3 days. I've translated UI components in complex multilingual applications before.

It will be awesome to have this pull request.