Feature: Internationalization (i18n) support — offering French translation

[Winston-1874]

Feature request: Internationalization (i18n) support

Context

Pipali currently has all UI strings hardcoded in English across the frontend codebase. There is no internationalization framework in place — no locale files, no string extraction, no language detection.

As Pipali is still early (v0.1), now would be the ideal time to introduce i18n before the number of hardcoded strings grows further.

Proposal

1. Add an i18n framework — react-i18next or i18next would be the natural fit given the React frontend. Alternatively, a simpler approach with JSON locale files and a custom hook could work.

2. Extract all user-facing strings into locale files (e.g., locales/en.json).

3. Detect system locale — Tauri provides access to the system locale, which could be used as the default language.

4. Add a language selector in settings for manual override.

What I'm offering

I'd be happy to contribute the French (fr) translation once the i18n framework is in place and strings are extracted. I'm a native French speaker based in Belgium.

If the team prefers a specific i18n approach or library, I'm flexible — just point me to the convention and I'll follow it.

Questions for maintainers

• Is i18n support already on the roadmap?
• Any preferred library or approach?
• Would a PR that adds react-i18next + extracts English strings + adds French be welcome, or would you prefer to handle the framework setup internally and open translation contributions afterward?

Environment

• Pipali v0.1 (AppImage, Linux)
• Proposed locale: fr (French)

[debanjum]

Hey @Winston-1874, thanks for the suggestion and offer to help with the French translation! I've added internationalization support and the french translations to the app in #24 .

Let me know if you have suggestions to improve the french translations? We can add update them as a follow-up to the PR.