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+# Jupyter Notebook Translation and Localization
+
+## Problem
+
+There is currently no standard approach for translating the GUI of [Jupyter notebook]( https://github.com/jupyter/notebook).
+This has driven some people to do a
+[single language translation for Jupyter 4.1](https://twitter.com/Mbussonn/status/685870031247400960).
+
+For information: previous attempts and related issues:
+
+- https://github.com/ipython/ipython/issues/6718
+- https://github.com/ipython/ipython/pull/5922
+- https://github.com/jupyter/notebook/issues/870
+
+## Scope
+The proposed enhancement is for "classic" [Jupyter notebook]( https://github.com/jupyter/notebook),
+not [Jupyter lab](https://github.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab).
+Hopefully, some of the concepts used here will carry over, but for now the scope here is limited to classic
+[Jupyter notebook]( https://github.com/jupyter/notebook).
+
+## Proposed Enhancement
+
+Use [Babel](http://babel.pocoo.org/en/latest/)
+to extract translatable strings from the Jupyter code, creating `.pot` files that can be updated
+whenever the code base changes. The `.pot` file can be thought of as the source from which all translations are derived.
+
+Translators and/or interested contributors can then use utilities such as [Poedit](https://poedit.net/) to create
+translated `.po` files from the master `.pot` file for the desired languages.
+
+At install time, convert the translated `.po` into two runtime formats:
+* Convert to `.mo` which can be used by Python code using the gettext() APIs in Python, and can also be used by
+the i18n extensions in [Jinja2](http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/dev/extensions/#i18n-extension)
+
+* Convert to JSON using [po2json](https://github.com/mikeedwards/po2json) for consumption by the Javascript
+code within Jupyter.
+
+## Detailed Explanation
+
+The [Jupyter notebook code]( https://github.com/jupyter/notebook) presents a significant challenge in terms of enablement for translation,
+mostly because there are multiple different types of source code from which translatable UI strings
+are derived.
+
+In [Jupyter notebook]( https://github.com/jupyter/notebook), translatable strings can come from one of three places:
+
+1. Directly from Python code
+
+2. As part of a Jinja2 HTML template, which is consumed by Python code
+
+3. From Javascript code
+
+For each of these three types, it is necessary to follow a few simple steps in order to allow the code
+to work properly in a translated environment.  These steps are:
+
+1. Use an established API to identify those strings in the source code that are presented as UI
+and thus should be translatable.
+2. Provide the hooks in the source code that will allow the code to access translated strings
+at run time.
+
+Once these have been done, the [Babel](http://babel.pocoo.org/en/latest/) utilities provide an easy to
+use mechanism to identify the files in the Jupyter code base that contain translatable strings, and
+extract all of them into a single file ( a `.pot` file ) that is used as the basis for translation.
+
+Let's look at how this would look for each of the three types mentioned above:
+
+### Python files
+
+Some UI strings in the Jupyter notebook come directly from Python code. For these strings, the most
+widely accepted way to make them translatable is to use Python's gettext() API. When using gettext(),
+the developer simply needs to enclose the translatable Python string within _(), and add the appropriate
+calls in the Python to retrieve that string from the message catalog at run time. So for example:
+
+```python
+return info + "The Jupyter Notebook is running at: %s" % self.display_url
+```
+
+becomes
+
+```python
+return info + _("The Jupyter Notebook is running at: %s") % self.display_url
+```
+
+After this step is complete, then hooks must be put in place in order to tell Python to use gettext()
+to retrieve the string from the message catalog at runtime. This is simply a matter of adding
+```python
+import gettext
+```
+at the top of the python code and then adding
+```python
+# Set up message catalog access
+trans = gettext.translation('notebook', localedir=os.path.join(base_dir, 'locale'), fallback=True)
+trans.install()
+```
+
+Once this is complete, any calls to `_()` in the code will retrieve a translated string from 
+${base_dir}/locale/**xx**/LC_MESSAGES/notebook.mo, where **xx** is the language code in use
+when the notebook is launched.
+For example "de" for German, "fr" for French, etc. If no message catalog is available, or if
+the string doesn't exist in the catalog, then the string passed as the argument to _() is
+returned.
+
+In this context, **${base_dir}** refers to the base installation directory for notebook. We are
+assuming that all provided translations will be small enough so that they can be shipped
+with notebook itself instead of having to be split out into separately installable packages.
+
+
+### HTML Templates
+The majority of the language of the GUI is contained in [html template files](https://github.com/jupyter/notebook/tree/master/notebook/templates) 
+and accessed via [Jinja2](http://jinja.pocoo.org).
+
+For the HTML templates, I recommend that we use the [Jinja2 i18n extension]
+(http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/dev/extensions/#i18n-extension) that allows us to specify which portions of each template contain translatable
+strings, and is quite compatible with gettext() as described above.  
+The extension contains some features that allow for things like variable substitution and simple plural handling,
+but in it's simplest form it uses tags `{% trans %}` and `{% endtrans %}` to delimit those strings that are translatable.
+Thus, the message at the top of the first screen you see when starting Jupyter looks like this in the template:
+
+```html
+<div class="dynamic-instructions">
+    {% trans %}Select items to perform actions on them.{% endtrans %}
+</div>
+```
+
+After properly externalizing all the strings, hooking it all up to work with [Jinja2](http://jinja.pocoo.org) is a matter of
+loading the translations from the **SAME** message catalog as was defined in the Python example above, into Jinja2.
+Here's an example of how that would be done within Jupyter:
+
+```python
+        env = Environment(loader=FileSystemLoader(template_path), extensions=['jinja2.ext.i18n'], **jenv_opt)
+        env.install_gettext_translations(trans, newstyle=False)
+```
+
+Note here that **trans** is the same variable initialized by `gettext.translation()` in the Python example earlier.
+
+### Javascript files
+
+For Javascript, there are no established APIs that can consume a compiled `.mo` file directly in the same way as gettext().
+However, there is a library called [Jed](https://slexaxton.github.io/Jed/) that provides an API set similar to gettext().
+[Jed](https://slexaxton.github.io/Jed/) uses JSON as it's input file instead of `.mo` files, but
+the good news here is that there are plenty of 3rd party utilities that can convert from `.po` into a form of JSON that
+can be consumed by Jed. The author of [Jed](https://slexaxton.github.io/Jed/) recommends
+[po2json](https://www.npmjs.com/package/po2json), which can be used
+either as a command line utility, or directly from Javascript.  I suspect that the conversion from `.po` to either
+`.mo` for Python or Jinja2, or conversion to JSON for Javascript would be something we would want to do at install time.
+
+Identification of strings for translation using this method is done similarly to the way we would do it for Python:
+by creating a function named `_()`, enclosing all translatable strings as an argument to this function, and then
+binding it to the `gettext()` API.  The binding in Javascript would look like this:
+
+```javascript
+    var i18n = new Jed(nbjson);
+    var _ = function (text) {
+    	return i18n.gettext(text);
+    }
+
+```
+
+Then to externalize a string, just enclose it in `_()`, for example:
+
+```javascript
+if (selectable !== undefined) {
+    checkbox = $('<input/>')
+        .attr('type', 'checkbox')
+        .attr('title', _('Click here to rename, delete, etc.'))
+        .appendTo(item);
+}
+```
+
+## Use of Babel to extract translatable strings
+
+[Babel](http://babel.pocoo.org/en/latest/) allows us to define a set of rules that define
+where all the extractable strings are (whether Python, HTML template, or Javascript), what the
+extraction methods are (i.e. `_()` for Python or Javascript, and `<% trans >`/`<% endtrans %>`
+for the HTML templates, and do all the necessary extractions to create a single `.pot` in one
+easy step.  This definition is done by creating a `babel.cfg` file, which looks something like this:
+
+```
+[python: **/**.py]
+[jinja2: notebook/templates/**.html]
+ encoding = utf-8
+[extractors] 
+ jinja2 = jinja2.ext:babel_extract
+[javascript: notebook/static/tree/js/*.js]
+extract_messages = $._
+```
+
+Once this is defined, message extraction can be performed using the [pybabel -extract](http://babel.pocoo.org/en/latest/cmdline.html)
+command.  This should be done anytime the English source strings are modified.
+
+## Translation Files
+
+We haven't yet determined exactly which set of languages we plan to contribute to the project once
+the enablement work is complete, but this framework should allow any other interested parties to
+perform the translation and testing work at their discretion.
+
+
+## Pros and Cons
+
+Pros associated with this implementation include:
+* Using established APIs such as `gettext()`, which are stable and have been around for many years.
+* Message extraction can be done in such a way that a single file, or perhaps a small set of files
+can be delivered to a translator.
+* We don't have to have a different file format for each different technology used (Python / HTML template / Javascript )
+* Much of the tooling needed has already been written, we just need to make use of it.
+
+Cons associated with this implementation include:
+* There are many external dependencies: 
+[Babel](http://babel.pocoo.org/en/latest/),
+[Jed](https://slexaxton.github.io/Jed/),
+[po2json](https://github.com/mikeedwards/po2json).  There may be some difficulties with the licensing.
+* Jupyter notebook developers have to be made aware of the proper ways to externalize any new strings
+that are added, and to perform message extraction via [Babel](http://babel.pocoo.org/en/latest/)
+whenever strings change.
+
+
+## Prototype - Proof of Concept
+I have created a **VERY** preliminary prototype of Jupyter notebook at (https://github.com/JCEmmons/notebook/tree/intl)
+using the concepts presented here.  Only a handful of the strings are externalized, but there are some
+from each of the 3 types, and I used [Poedit](https://poedit.net/) to create some hopefully reasonable translations
+into German, Japanese, and Russian.  I haven't yet had time to add the necessary code to the Javascript
+in order to do dynamic loading of the JSON, but that would be the next step.
+
+## Interested Contributors
+@twistedhardware @rgbkrk @captainsafia @JCEmmons @srl295
+