Plugin Localization

Kodi has its own specific localization system that is also used for addons. This system uses numeric codes for extracting respective localized GUI strings from addon localization .po files using getLocalizedString method. For example:

import xbmcaddon
import xbmcgui

addon = xbmcaddon.Addon()
xbmcgui.Dialog().ok(addon.getLocalizedString(32000), addon.getLocalizedString(32001))

As you can see, this is neither intuitive nor convenient and may lead to errors. To improve code readability the SimplePlugin library can emulate a popular GNU Gettext localization system that is also standard for Python programs. This emulation layer is implemented through initialize_gettext() and gettext() methods that allow to access localized addon GUI strings using English source strings instead of numeric codes. For example:

import xbmcgui
from simpleplugin import Plugin

plugin = Plugin()
_ = plugin.initialize_gettext()

xbmcgui.Dialog().ok(_('Hello World!'), _('This is sample text.'))

The initialize_gettext() method returns gettext method object that is used to extract localized GUI stirngs. The name of this method (or function) object can be any but traditionally it is named with a single underscore _ to reduce typing. In the preceding example you can clearly see which strings or their localized versions are used in addon/plugin GUI elements and this code is much more readable than in the first example.

Warning

To use the Gettext emulation you need to call initialize_gettext() method first. All GUI strings obtained using the emulation feature must be present at least in English strings.po file. Attempting to access a missing string will result in simpleplugin.SimplePluginError exception.