How to translate an Obsidian plugin with i18n

Extract strings, batch-translate them, review them, and apply the result to an installed plugin.

This guide walks through the current plugin translation flow for an installed Obsidian plugin. Plugin extraction reads the target plugin’s main.js.

Prerequisites

• Obsidian i18n is installed and enabled
• the target plugin is installed in the current vault
• the target plugin directory contains main.js
• if you want AI translation, at least one provider profile is configured

End-to-end flow

1. Open the Manager

   Click the globe icon, or run the command that opens the i18n panel.

2. Find the target plugin

   Use the 插件 tab and locate the installed plugin by name or ID.

3. Run Extract

   Click Extract. The plugin reads main.js and generates a local translation source with AST and Regex sections.

4. Inspect AST and Regex rows

   AST rows carry node type and variable-name context. Regex rows come from Regex matches against source text.

5. Open the AI panel

   Use the AST or Regex AI panel.

6. Set language, batch size, concurrency, and timeout

   These panels write back to language, llmBatchSize, llmConcurrencyLimit, and llmTimeout. Defaults are zh-cn, 10, 3, and 60000.

7. Translate

   By default, only rows whose target is empty, whitespace-only, or equal to source are sent. Existing translated rows are resent only when overwrite is enabled.

8. Review the output

   Check placeholders such as ${variable} and escape sequences such as \n before applying.

9. Apply

   Click Apply. If the result is wrong, click Restore before applying again.