Q: Localazy CLI is not working on macOS Big Sur

After upgrading to macOS Big Sur, there’s a chance you may run into an issue with executing Localazy CLI. This is usually caused by incorrect configuration of <code>brew</code> package manager. (Note that this doesn’t apply to binaries downloaded directly from our website, they should be working fine.) The symptoms look like this, the process is killed without any further output. <img src="https://directus.localazy.com/_/assets/Screenshot_cli_inner_3.png" alt=""> To resolve the issue, go to App Store -&gt; Updates and make sure, there’s no update available for Xcode. If yes, click “UPDATE” and wait for it to finish. <img src="https://directus.localazy.com/_/assets/Screenshot_cli_inner_2.png" alt=""> After the update, try to run <code>brew doctor</code> and read the output carefully. There could be a warning about outdated CLT and suggested fix. <img src="https://directus.localazy.com/_/assets/Screenshot_cli_inner_1.png" alt=""> Let’s run the commands in the specified order and confirm all dialogues that might appear. <ul> <li><code>softwareupdate --all --install --force</code>,</li> <li><code>sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools</code></li> <li><code>sudo xcode-select --install</code></li> </ul> Upgrade Localazy CLI to the latest version by running <code>brew upgrade localazy/tools</code> And that’s all! You can now verify that Localazy CLI is working again with the <code>localazy -h</code> command.

Question 1

What are source keys?

Accepted Answer

Source key is basically a string of text in your source language stored in Localazy. Our free limit is 200 source keys, and you can increase the limit whenever you need it.

Translations to other languages are unlimited, and translating your app to more languages does not affect the number of source keys used.

Question 2

What happens when I reach the source key limit?

Accepted Answer

Don’t worry! You will still be able to use Localazy and all features in your plan without any restrictions. However, you won’t be able to publish your changes until you increase the source keys quota.

Question 3

How can I increase the source key limit?

Accepted Answer

There are several ways to increase your limit:

You can increase your source key limit plus unlock additional features by upgrading to a higher tier.
We offer affordable monthly/annual payments in the Marketplace for source key limit increase on top of your current tier.
With a one-time payment, you can increase your limit forever without any recurring fees.
Increase your source key limit for free! Visit the Community section and support Localazy with reviews, referrals, etc., to earn your rewards.

Question 4

In which form string resources can be uploaded?

Accepted Answer

You can upload your strings directly from you IDE using our available libraries. The reason behind this is the advanced analysis of translatable strings. Localazy will find all strings and will also recommend ignoring common private strings if they are not flagged.

Is this way of uploading useful also for apps which already have translations? 🔗

Of course, this works for both starting and enrolled apps. Moreover, you can easily migrate all your work into Localazy and finish your current unfinished translations sooner thanks to Localazy ShareTM.

Question 5

The Gradle plugin does not inject Localazy Android library

Accepted Answer

When you configure the Localazy Gradle plugin or change its configuration, be sure to clean the project. We use caching and incremental builds wherever possible to speed up the building of your app. Without cleaning your project, the compiled classes may not be re-compiled, and changes not applied.

Question 6

Should I remove existing strings.xml files after integrating Localazy?

Accepted Answer

No. You can leave them unchanged. We automatically process them during the build process, update contained strings, and add missing ones. We never touch your source files, but we always build your app with the most recent translation.

Question 7

What makes me sure there&#x27;s no deal breaker?

Accepted Answer

We have made our offerings as transparent as possible and the pricing is reportedly quite unique in a good manner. If you find a better offer, we are always happy to make a deal.

Question 8

I&#x27;m used to using a feature you don&#x27;t have. How about this?

Accepted Answer

Please, create a feature request or just leave us a message in the chat about what you are looking for. We will make sure your needs are addressed.

Question 9

I am too busy, but I want to switch. Any help by hand?

Accepted Answer

It is incredibly easy to use Localazy if you follow common practices when it comes to string management. However, feel free to leave us a message anytime, our team is available online to help you proceed. Or just send an invite to your favourite developer

Question 10

Localazy CLI is not working on macOS Big Sur

Accepted Answer

After upgrading to macOS Big Sur, there’s a chance you may run into an issue with executing Localazy CLI. This is usually caused by incorrect configuration of brew package manager. (Note that this doesn’t apply to binaries downloaded directly from our website, they should be working fine.)

The symptoms look like this, the process is killed without any further output.

To resolve the issue, go to App Store -> Updates and make sure, there’s no update available for Xcode. If yes, click “UPDATE” and wait for it to finish.

After the update, try to run brew doctor and read the output carefully. There could be a warning about outdated CLT and suggested fix.

Let’s run the commands in the specified order and confirm all dialogues that might appear.

softwareupdate --all --install --force,
sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools
sudo xcode-select --install

Upgrade Localazy CLI to the latest version by running brew upgrade localazy/tools

And that’s all! You can now verify that Localazy CLI is working again with the localazy -h command.

Question 11

Why some translations cannot be exported correctly into XML?

Accepted Answer

You might encounter a message such as:

Phrases 1dbb1f96d2b25755ec8ce882766596c150efecc7 and aaa97c82019600566b80fe5645341518337208ae in Czech cannot be exported correctly - malformed XML. Skipping.

This means that the translation cannot be exported into XML because the translator probably didn’t insert tags correctly, didn’t close them etc.

Please verify these translations and try again.

Question 12

Why are recent changes or new translations not downloaded?

Accepted Answer

When you encounter this problem, it most likely means that you are running over your account’s source key limit. Please visit the Marketplace and upgrade your account or increase your source key limit from there.

Question 13

Is the app source code uploaded to Localazy?

Accepted Answer

Worried about your source code? Don’t be. All your source code remains only on your machine. The only thing uploaded to Localazy are the strings to be translated.

Question 14

Do I have to integrate Localazy Android Library?

Accepted Answer

Localazy Android Library is optional. It brings your app a lot of benefits, but we also understand that maybe you are not happy to integrate 3rd party libraries into your app.

Hence, you can just use our CLI without Localazy Android library.

Question 15

The changes made on Localazy are not applied to my app?

Accepted Answer

It may take up to 15-30 minutes to publish changes and replicate them to all our servers. Also, be sure to clean your project as we use intensive caching to speed up building your app and reduce the data transfers for the end-users.

Question 16

How can I share translations across connected projects?

Accepted Answer

Connected Projects feature is built with purpose to enable sharing of localizable strings across your tech stack. It is especially useful if parts of your project consist of different technologies and shared strings appear, for example, in the backend and frontend as well.

Question 17

How Connected Projects work in the background?

Accepted Answer

Connected Projects feature is powered by Localazy® InTM technology. It’s a pro-active translation memory that scans your app and looks for the same phrases in the source language with missing translations in other languages. If there is a missing translation that could be completed from another source, it’s offered through our unique review.

Question 18

How to configure Connected Projects?

Accepted Answer

Activate the Professional plan to unlock the Connected Projects feature for your projects. Then select the projects you want to connect and you are done!

The connection is bi-directional and transitive. Meaning that connected projects mutually receive translations from each other. Also, if project A is connected to B, and B is connected to project C, then A might also receive translations from C and vice versa.

Question 19

What is the price of Continuous Localization services?

Accepted Answer

The price of services provided by the Continuous Localization Team depends on the chosen language pair and the selected level of service.

You can choose between:

Professional Translations
Professional Proofreading
Human Translation Validation
Human-Assisted Machine Translations

You can see the estimated costs before you order.

To start, sign up, click on the Order translations tab in the left menu and top up some translation credits to your balance.

Learn how to order translations for your project.

Question 20

How Human Translation Validation helps Localazy users?

Accepted Answer

When using Localazy, you don’t have to review all translations on your own! You can order the automated Human Translation Validation service.

Human Translation Validation is a pay-per-word Continuous Localization service by Localazy. Choose this service if your translations are crowdsourced from volunteers or end-users, and you want to verify the quality. A human Reviewer from our team will reject harmful or completely wrong translations, accept satisfactory translations, and correct minor mistakes.

Order Human Translation Validation when you don’t have the resources available to conduct reviews in-house (or yourself, if you run a one-man show).

The Reviewer performing the Human Translation Validation is represented by one or more Localazy team members who verify the quality of your translations by checking the consistency of context, punctuation, and placeholders. On top of that, the service works automatically and proactively and we review translations as they are added to your project.

Additionally, the Reviewers may also correct small mistakes or typos in the translations as they go. Translations that pass the check are approved (and corrected if needed), while wrong or harmful contributions are rejected.

Question 21

What is the workflow of Human Translation Validation?

Accepted Answer

You might be wondering what the workflow is once you order our Continuous Localization service called Human Translation Validation.

Before you start setting up Human Translation Validation, add some languages and translations. These translations can be sourced from contributors and volunteers, you invited to help translate your project.
Then, go to the Order translations screen on your Localazy dashboard and select these languages for Human Translation Validation. Top up your credits and go through the needed steps to set up your configuration.
After everything is up and running, Reviewers from Localazy team start reviewing available translations in selected languages. You will see the progress in the Activity Stream, and we will notify you when all work is done or when your balance reaches zero before work is completed.
Sit back, check the results and forget about translation reviews because once you keep a sufficient balance, the Continuous Localization Team works day and night proactively to review newly added or changed translations!

And that’s it, using Localazy with enabled Human Translation Validation is a breeze - achieve your localization goals in record time with the Continuous Localization Team by Localazy by your side.

Question 22

What are some internationalization best practices?

Accepted Answer

Product internationalization is a pretty vast area and depending on the nature of your product & markets you are considering, i18n can comprise of different operations and best practices. However, you can learn more about software internationalization on our blog.

Few points about internationalization 🔗

Take localization into account in the early stages of development. Introducing multilingual support once you are rolling requires extra work on your part and makes you more likely to forget something important. Think about localization throughout your product as a whole, e.g., don’t allow the backend to send untranslated messages.
Make sure you handle string interpolation correctly from the very beginning. For example, don’t concatenate but use placeholders instead. Manage strings with various plural forms properly etc
Use plurals the right way, e.g., don’t use plural zero for an empty check.
The previous two points will help you prevent the most common problems when you start implementing more “exotic” languages, such as RTL languages or those without plurals.
Double-check that you handle date formats etc., correctly as well. Unfortunately, this is something that we can’t do for you - it’s a matter of proper implementation within your code.
Separate configuration from localization
Make sure your design is ready

Question 23

What is i18n?

Accepted Answer

i18n stands for internationalization. Internationalization is a process of making the subject of internationalization ready for international markets. Abbreviation i18n is often used by software developers and digital product designers.

Question 24

How do you internationalize an app?

Accepted Answer

🥳️ You’re nearly at the finalization of your app, getting ready to deploy… but you want to reach an international audience? STOP! Don’t hit any other button before internationalizing your application to include translations for more than one language. How can you do this?

App internationalization is the process of allocating an application’s content into changeable interfaces and variables capable of presenting content in the chosen language with ease. Both iOS and Android app developers must follow similar processes to localize their content. 🚩

During this phase, the content is separated (or externalized) from the code into localizable files, which are then utilized according to the language users choose. Essentially, your app will display texts from external files called through the code. This makes adding new languages to your app simple, programmatically speaking, because you simply need to add new files with translated strings. And this is taken care of by Localazy automatically when you set everything up correctly 😀

See the general guide on How to prepare your app for internationalization and localization

Android app internationalization and localization 🔗

📱 Your Android app can be ready for foreign markets in just three steps. We’ve made this easy with our state-of-the-art Android integration via our Gradle i18n plugin, making Android localization a breeze. Nothing is left untranslated when you use Localazy. And as a bonus, our users update their translations in Android apps in real-time by using OTA updates.

See our Case study on Android app localization

iOS app internationalization and localization 🔗

What about an iOS app? How can you internationalize an iOS application? Apple has crafted a guide for app owners to prepare their app for localization. But basically, all you have to do is export your texts in Xcode, which will create a Localizable.strings file that you can then import to Localazy.

Localazy perfectly accompanies you after the internationalization of your iOS app and provides a localization solution without dealing with tedious file downloading and uploading.

Learn how How to translate iOS app with Localazy CLI/SDK

Question 25

What is software localization?

Accepted Answer

Software localization is a process of making apps aligned to specific audiences. To make your app localized, you need to translate the content with the correct contexts accurately and align other aspects of the software to fit cultural requirements and preferences.

Software localization is part of the internationalization (i18n) process. It has the objective of adapting a software product by customizing, if needed, the language, text media, currency, etc.

Localization of software product will provide consumers a personalized experience that will attract more users from local markets to use it and increase revenue for the company operating the service or product.

You might be interested in: 🔗

How to prepare your application for i18n & l10n

Question 26

How is localization done?

Accepted Answer

The software localization process starts right at the beginning of the development - the first step is to ensure you have the language, media (images, video, sound), text, date format, numbers, and currency as external content. When you want to expand the product to another market or make different versions of it, you only have to change the external content to the target market’s specific needs. An essential subprocess of localization, and maybe the most important, is the translation of the language, i.e., translating the external string files, as this is the core of communication between the product and its users.

You might be interested in: 🔗

Question 27

How to do crowdsourced translations?

Accepted Answer

At Localazy, we are aware that software localization is commonly conducted with the help of volunteers recruited from the userbase of the product.

While these volunteering translators may not be professionals and carry a risk of low quality or even sabotage of the translations with them, there are some advantages to using crowdsourced translations.

Your users know the product well; they are using it actively and understand the context and meaning of texts they translate.
They are volunteers, which means they do the work for free.
You still have control over the translations that reach your audience with the review process.
Localazy makes the crowdsourced translation process easy with a built-in permission system, proactive review, and additional features which help you make correct decisions.

It helps to prepare your project in a certain way to promote translator productivity. Read these articles before you start with crowdsourced translations to make the process comfortable for all parties involved. Once you are ready, integrate Localazy with your project and begin inviting contributors.

Question 28

How to use Multiple Machine Translation Engines at once?

Accepted Answer

Localazy offers you the possibility to easily translate your digital content with the help of machine translation (MT) engines within the web interface.

The Free tier provides Amazon Translate suggestions to support you by default, but sometimes, it’s not enough. When you want to use multiple machine translation engines at once, Localazy includes the Additional MT Engines feature.

Localazy helps you make better choices by displaying suggestions from multiple MT engines simultaneously, allowing you to make a more precise and accurate translation even when you don’t fully understand the target language.

Additional MT Engines feature is available with the Autopilot plan and higher tiers.

Supported machine translation engines are:

Amazon Translate (default)
Google Translate
DeepL
Azure Translator

Question 29

What is the best Machine Translation Engine?

Accepted Answer

We can gauge how good a Machine Translation Engine is by the accuracy of the translation, conciseness, consistency of output, and how many language pairs they offer.

Localazy offers four major machine translation engines to use when translating your content (available with the Additional MT feature enabled).

Use English, which is unquestionably the best language to pair with another language for machine translations because translations from and to English give the best results overall. That’s why it is also a good idea to select English as the source language for your projects in Localazy.

As for the engine itself, each one has its pros and cons:

Google Translate is the most popular and offers many languages and language pairs with a reasonably accurate translation, making it the best average option.
DeepL is becoming quickly better and better and is great for more technical terms. It is usually also very concise but has a lower variety of language pairs.
Amazon Translate still has a somewhat fluctuating quality; it can be very high or pretty low, but you can use it for free with Localazy.
Microsoft Azure has fewer available language options and average quality.

The best thing you can do is combine and compare multiple machine translation outputs and decide on the best results with backward translations and other checks.

Question 30

What is Machine Translation Post Editing?

Accepted Answer

Machine Translation Post Editing (MTPE) is the process of reviewing and editing the content translated by the machine translation engines giving it a final, more accurate result.

MTPE can include checking that all placeholders are correct and that the project-specific content is translated correctly and consistently.

Question 31

How to edit XLIFF files?

Accepted Answer

To edit XLIFF files, you could use an advanced text editor (such as Sublime Text or Notepad++), any IDE software (such as VisualStudio Code and others), or just use Localazy, which was made specifically with translation file formats in mind. Localazy offers a clutter-free way to browse, edit and manage localization files of many formats.

To open and edit XLIFF files using the Localazy interface, sign up, create a new translation project and upload the XLIFF file. Then head to the File management tab to open the file you just uploaded. You’ll then be able to browse and edit the content of the file in a user-friendly environment.

Further reading: 🔗

Quick Start - XLIFF

Question 32

How to open XLIFF files?

Accepted Answer

To open XLIFF files, you can use any text editor that supports the format (such as Notepad, Sublime Text, or Notepad++), use online services, or Localazy - the online translation management system explicitly made for working with translation file formats.

Localazy offers a clutter-free way to browse, edit and manage localization files of many formats.

To open XLIFF files using the Localazy interface, sign up, create a new translation project and upload the XLIFF file. You’ll then be able to browse the content of the file in a user-friendly environment.

Question 33

How to translate XLIFF files?

Accepted Answer

To translate XLIFF files, you can simply edit the files and translate all content on your own or with the help of machine translation engines such as Google Translate. But this approach is messy, error-prone, and tedious. There is a far better way of doing this.

Translating XLIFF files is simple with Localazy. After signing up for free, create a new translation project and upload your XLIFF file. Head to the Translations tab, add new languages and start translating.

Localazy gives you a clutter-free interface for translating XLIFF files content, with built-in machine translation suggestions and all features a sound translation management system should offer!

To translate XLIFF files automatically, you have two (paid) options:

Question 34

How do I cancel my subscription?

Accepted Answer

To cancel the Localazy subscription, please follow these steps:

Navigate to the marketplace.
If you are not already logged in, login to the app.
On the marketpalce page select “Manage subscriptions”
Find the current plan an click “Cancel plan”

The subscription will cancel at the end of the billing period.

Question 35

How can I delete my account?

Accepted Answer

If you, for any reason, wish to delete your Localazy account, you can do so by following the below steps.

Navigate to the Edit profile page.
Find and expand the “Danger Zone” at the bottom of the page.
Click “Delete my profile” and confirm.

Please note that this action is irreversible, and all your data will be lost!

Question 36

How to delete a project in Localazy?

Accepted Answer

To delete a project you no longer need, go to the Project settings and unfurl the DANGER ZONE to display hidden options. From there, you can not only change the project’s source language but also wipe the project data or delete the project completely.

Question 37

What is the pricing policy for Localazy Translation API?

Accepted Answer

You can use the API absolutely for free. However, there are some limitations to prevent abuse.

Learn more about the limitations of Localazy API in the documentation.

Question 38

Where can I get my access token for the Localazy API?

Accepted Answer

After you sign up, you can obtain the token at https://localazy.com/developer/tokens

The project token is automatically permitted to read and write to the project.

Question 39

What is a Translation API?

Accepted Answer

Using translation software is the new normal for translation, but how can they assist in translating your app or web content? It usually happens through APIs. For understanding translation APIs is we must understand what an API is.

API stands for Application Programming Interface. Basically, by using an API, two applications can communicate with one another.

A translation API works as a software interface that developers can use to add machine translation capabilities to their products or programmatically translate texts and content that their product displays in localized versions.

Localazy provides a Translation API as one way of integrating of software translation projects.

Question 40

What are common problems with design localization?

Accepted Answer

Here’s a list of problems that might surprise you unprepared during the design process:

Bidirectionality (LTR/RTL) of languages
Distribution of word lengths in various languages
Copying strings from design to code (time-consuming duplications)
Continuous design localization problem & keeping track of updates
and more…

Figma Plugin by Localazy helps to resolve these problems with ease.

Question 41

Why can&#x27;t translations be downloaded back to Figma?

Accepted Answer

Sometimes, when using the Figma Plugin by Localazy, you might encounter an issue that after successfully uploading your text content and translating it in Localazy, when you try to download the translated texts back to Figma, nothing happens.

The most common cause of this issue is missing fonts. Figma should notify you about missing fonts when you open the file by an indicator in the top toolbar.

There are two solutions:

Install the missing fonts in your system and get the Figma Font Service if you use Figma in your web browser.
Change the texts in Figma to a different font style.

Learn more about solving missing fonts in Figma

Question 42

Why is the order of keys with translations alphabetized in the downloaded files?

Accepted Answer

Localazy doesn’t store the order in which your keys are sorted inside the files you upload. Our parsers extract the keys, and the files are reconstructed upon downloading them. This allows you to manage the keys and convert your files to other formats. Ordering keys by alphabet is consistent and shouldn’t break any project.

While we don’t recommend the following approach, you can add a numbered prefix to your key names if you really need to keep the keys in a particular order. E.g., cancel_button ➡️ 001_cancel_buttonand so on. This way, you can be in control of the order in which keys are exported.

Question 43

How to upload files with existing translations to Localazy?

Accepted Answer

You can upload existing translations to your source files in Localazy File Management or follow the guide to uploading existing translations via the CLI.

In file management, you won’t see multiple files in various languages. You can imagine each Localazy file as a stack of regular files you would find on your computer - with the source language on the bottom and all of the translated versions on top of it. So when you want to add a new language file, you update the stack of files. If you want to upload translations in another language to Localazy, use the Update file content option.

Question 44

What is the difference between hidden and deprecated source keys?

Accepted Answer

In Localazy, every key can be in different states, which makes it invisible from the translation process.

Hidden: Hidden keys are not available to translators, but other than that, they are processed the same way as all the others. They are also exported in the output file.

Keys are automatically marked hidden under certain circumstances - when the source language translation is empty or when they are linked to another one using our Duplicity Linking feature.

Deprecated: Deprecated keys are invisible in the translation process and are not exported in the output file. Under certain circumstances, they can be exported for our Android/iOS SDK when the update is required from the older version of the app. If the key reappears in the input data, it’s restored along with its complete state (context, translation, contributors, etc.)
Deleted: Deleted keys are removed with all their data - comments, translations, screenshot linking, contributors’ history, etc. Once the key is deleted, it’s no longer counted against the key limit, and it’s impossible to restore it.

Question 45

Should I delete deprecated keys?

Accepted Answer

If you are running over the source key limit, you can consider deleting deprecated keys. However, be sure that deleted keys are no longer necessary for your project, as you cannot restore them if needed, and all the associated data is also deleted.

It’s not only about the translations you can easily store and restore if needed when using deprecated keys instead of deleting them, but also about context information, comments, user interactions, etc. Once the key is deleted, it’s no longer counted against the key limit, and it’s impossible to restore it.

Question 46

How to add a new plural string using the Localazy UI?

Accepted Answer

If you want to add new content to your Localazy project quickly, you can go to the Translations overview page and click the “Add Content” button in the top left corner. At this point, select “Add source keys,” which will open a dialog window where you can create a new string.

Adding a plural type string requires a few more steps, but don’t worry - we’re planning to update the Create new string window to simplify the process.

Here’s what to do for now:

Create the new string like you usually would.
Go to the Source language list.
Find the corresponding string and select “Convert string to plural” from the context menu.

Plus, here is a helpful tip — you can select multiple strings from the source language list and convert them all at once to plural. This is a great way to add multiple plurals in one go rather than going through the process over and over again.

Frequently Asked Questions

About Pricing

About Android integration

About Migration

About CLI

About Localazy

About Advanced Features

About Continuous Localization Team

About Internationalization

About Localization

About Machine Translation

About File Formats

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About Figma & Design Localization

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