Skip to main content
Blueprints shows its interface in the language of each administrator’s game. Every word it shows comes from one translation file per language: English is the original, and every other language is a translation of it. You can add yours.

​
Languages

A language is official once it has been reviewed, tested in game and shipped in a release. Until then it is not offered in Blueprints, even if a translation has been sent.

​
What you need

  • The English file, below. You do not need to own Blueprints to translate it.
  • A plain text editor that saves UTF-8: VS Code, Notepad++, Sublime Text, or any code editor. Word processors break the file.
  • About a day of careful work: the file has a little over two thousand short texts.
  • Translation tools and AI assistants are allowed. You remain responsible for the result: read every text, and correct anything unnatural, inaccurate or wrong for its place in the interface before you send it.

​
1. Download the English file

vetra-blueprints-en-1.1.1.json

The English text of Blueprints 1.1.1. Save it, then rename it after your language’s code, for example de.json, es.json or pt-br.json.
Use the language codes Garry’s Mod uses (its language option), in lower case: de, es, pl, pt-br, zh-cn, zh-tw and so on. Blueprints picks a translation automatically from that setting.

​
2. Translate the values, never the keys

The file is a list of areas, each holding texts. On every line, the part left of the colon is a key: Blueprints looks texts up by it. The part right of the colon is the value: the text people read. Translate values only.
becomes, in German:
1

Keep every key exactly as it is

Do not translate, rename, add or remove a key, and keep the quotes, colons, commas and braces as they are.
2

Set your language's name

The first area, meta, has one value: "name": "English". Replace it with your language’s own name, as its speakers write it: Deutsch, Español, Polski.
3

Keep every placeholder

A word in braces, like {count}, {name} or {reason}, is filled in by Blueprints: a number, a name, a message. Keep each one exactly as written, braces included. You can move it anywhere in the sentence your language needs.
4

Keep console commands and key names

Anything that starts with vetra_ (a console command), !vblueprints, and key names such as Esc or Enter stay exactly as they are.
5

Plurals

Keys ending in _one and _other are the singular and plural of one text. Translate both. If your language has more plural forms (Polish, Russian, Czech and others have _few and _many), add those keys next to them with the same start, for example objectsSelected_few. We tell you which forms your language needs when we check the file.
6

Plain text only

No HTML, no formatting, no line breaks inside a value. Use your language’s normal punctuation and typographic apostrophes and quotation marks. Do not use an em dash.
7

Keep it short where the English is short

Buttons, column titles and labels have little room. Prefer the shortest natural wording.
Context. Blueprints is a server administration tool for Garry’s Mod: a Version is a saved state of the server’s objects, Restore brings a Version back, Deploy sends one from a development server to a production server, and an adapter connects another addon. When a word is ambiguous, the key’s name and its neighbours say where it appears. Ask us rather than guess.

​
3. Check your file

Before you send it:
  • Open it in your code editor: it should show no error. Or paste it into any JSON validator.
  • Search for { and check every placeholder against the English.
  • Make sure the file is saved as UTF-8 and named after your language code.
When you send it, we run it through the same automated check the official languages pass, and send you the report. It lists any missing or extra key, any placeholder or console command that changed, plural forms your language needs, and any text far longer than its English.

​
4. Send it

Open an issue on the public documentation repository, titled Translation: <language> (<code>), and attach your file (zip it if GitHub refuses a .json):

Open a translation issue

github.com/lhnfe/vetra-docs
No GitHub account? Send the file through a message to Vetra on GmodStore instead. In the issue or the message, say:
  • the language and its code;
  • whether you want to be credited, and under which name (or none);
  • that you agree to the terms below.
Is someone already on your language? Look at the open translation issues first. If one exists, comment on it: we put you in touch, and two people can share one translation. A language is held by the first open issue for 30 days without news; after that, anyone can take it over.

​
How we review it

  1. The automated check above. A file that fails is sent back with its report.
  2. A language review by a fluent speaker: natural wording, consistent terms, the right meaning in context, nothing unrelated or offensive. We may edit the text.
  3. A test in game, on the screens and in the window sizes Blueprints supports.
  4. A release. The language then appears in Blueprints’ Language setting, and in the table above.
We judge the finished translation: whether it is complete, accurate and natural, and reads as if Blueprints had been written in your language. Not how long it took, or which tools helped. We reply on the issue or the message at each step. A translation is not accepted just because it was sent, and we may decline one that does not meet these steps.

​
Reward

The first complete translation we accept into a language Blueprints does not support yet earns its contributor 50 % off one Vetra Blueprints licence. We reward the quality and usefulness of the finished translation, not the hours it took.
  • A new language only. Corrections and improvements to a language that already ships are credited, with your agreement, but not rewarded.
  • Complete: every text of the English file translated, and the automated check passed, placeholders and plural forms included.
  • Accurate and natural, right for its place in the interface, as a fluent speaker would write it. A translation made with AI assistance qualifies once you have reviewed and corrected it.
  • One reward per language. A second translation of the same language does not qualify automatically. If someone already holds the language (see “Is someone already on your language?” above), work with them: when two people complete a language together, tell us who receives the reward.
  • After acceptance, once the translation has passed every review step, not when it is sent.
  • One personal discount code, for one purchase of Vetra Blueprints on GmodStore, from your GmodStore account. We create it by hand, never automatically, once your translation is accepted and you are ready to buy; it expires within two weeks. It is not recurring, not transferable and not exchangeable for money.

​
Terms

By sending a translation, you confirm that:
  • it is your own work, or you have the right to send it;
  • Vetra may use, edit, distribute and keep maintaining it as part of its products, without limit in time, at no cost, and may let others translate from it;
  • you do not need to be credited, unless you ask to be.
We ask for nothing else about you. Your GitHub or GmodStore name is enough, and we use it only to reply to you, to credit you and to send a reward.

​
Credits

Translations that ship credit their contributors, with their agreement, here and in the release notes of the version that brings them.