Django i18n: how to not translate the admin site?

Question

I have an application in several languages but I would like to keepthe admin site always in english. What is the best way to do this?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Consider using middleware that overrides the locale for certain URLs. Here's a rough example:

Django 1.9 and earlier:

from django.conf import settings    
from django.utils.translation import activate     
import re

class ForceInEnglish(object):

    def process_request(self, request):   
        if re.match(".*admin/", request.path):          
            activate("en")      
        else:
            activate(settings.LANGUAGE_CODE)

This is just an idea of implementation.

Django 1.10+:

from django.conf import settings
from django.utils import translation


class ForceInEnglish:

    def __init__(self, get_response):
        self.get_response = get_response

    def __call__(self, request):
        if request.path.startswith('/admin'):
            request.LANG = 'en'
            translation.activate(request.LANG)
            request.LANGUAGE_CODE = request.LANG

        return self.get_response(request)

How to apply?

Save to 'middleware.py', and include to MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES (1.9 and earlier) or MIDDLEWARE (1.10+) in the settings file.

Answer 2

I would setup two settings files:

1. settings.py for whole project
2. admin_settings.py for admin only

Then host this project in separate domains:

1. example.com
2. admin.example.com

If you have separate settings files for admin and rest of the project, you can override language settings in your admin_settings.py

You will probably have very similar settings files, so following line on the top of admin_settings.py will be handy:

from my_project.settings import *