Django doesn't create translation .po files

Question

I have my translation strings only in templates (stored in the project_dir/Templates), I tried running the $ django-admin.py createmessages -l ru both in the project root directory and in the app directories that use templates with trans. strings. It created folders locale/ru/LC_MESSAGES but the folders were empty. I tried to add the django.po files manually (with the syntax mentioned in the l10n docs). And ran the createmessages -a and compilemessages commands. It created the .mo files, but the translations didn't appear in the browser.

1. As I created the .po files manually I had no lines starting with #. What should I write there?
2. My template files are in different folder than the .py files for apps. Should I put some extra links to them?

Answer 1

did you try :

python manage.py makemessages -a 

from project root and app ?

this should create a .po that you have to edit. be sure to remove 'fuzzy' stuff everywhere.

then :

python manage.py compilemessages

You need to restart the server

Answer 2

For newer versions of Django (e.g. 3.2):

1. in the root directory create folder "locale"

2. run command django-admin makemessages -l ru

3. update your language files (located in the locale folder)

4. run django-admin compilemessages

5. Configure the LOCALE_PATHS in settings.py, otherwise you won't see the translations:

   LOCALE_PATHS = [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'locale')]

   LANGUAGE_CODE = 'ru'