babelfish_redo-cd2025/README.md

BabelFish... but done in another way

This mod allows Luanti players to communicate across language barriers.

... but why not the original BabalFish mod?

BabelFish was (and if you aren't a developer, still is) a great mod for breaking langauge barrier between players speaking different languages. However, it was unmaintained for 7 years, and many code became messy and inefficient. This rewrite is a drop-in replacement for most end users, and provides more method for developers to interact with BabelFish. Notable changes include:

• Guessing preferred language from the player's client language code
• Allow specifying source language in translations
• Translate into multiple languages at once
• Handles Beerchat properly
• Shipped with Lingva Translate support (Yandex Translate port will be avaliable soon)
• Register new translation engine with new mods instead of adding files into the core mod

How to use? (as an end-user)

Avaliable in babelfish_core mod:

• Use /bbcodes to list all avaliable languages and their alias.

Avaliable in babelfish_chat mod:

• Write %<language code>:[<source language>] in a message to boardcast translation to other players
  • e.g. "Hello %fr" would yield "Bonjour"
  • Specifying source language may be userful in translating shorter phrases, e.g. "Ja %en" would yield "And" (Estonian), but "Ja %en:de" would yield "Yes" (German).
  • You can translate into multiple languages at once by seperating targets with comma without spaces, e.g. "Hello %zh,fr" would yield both "Bonjour" and "你好"
  • Unlike the original BabelFish, you must leave spaces between the tag and other texts.
• Use /bb <language code>[:<source language>] <sentence> to send a message in another language.
  • (Beerchat only) Use /bb #<channel> (other arguments...) to send to a channel.

Avaliable in babelfish_preferred_langauge mod:

• Your preferred language is guessed when you first join the server.
  • Fallbacks to English if your language is not supported.
• Use /bblang <language code> to set your preferred language.
• Use /bbget to check your preferred language.
• Use /bbget <player name> to check other's preferred language
• (Moderators only) Use /bbset <player name> <language code> to set other's preferred language

Avaliable in babelfish_chat_history mod:

• Use /babel <username> to translate the last message sent by a user
• (Beerchat only) Use /babel <username> <channel> to translate the last message sent by a user on a channel
  • If channel is unspecified, defaults to the executer's channel.

Avaliable in babelfish_private_chat

• User /bmsg <username> <message> to send private messages to a player in their preferred language.

How to set up? (as a server maintainer)

To start, you must enable the following mods:

• babelfish_core
• Any BabelFish Redo translation engines (e.g. babelfish_engine_lingva)
  • Check their README.md for installation instructions. Most backends requires adding them to secure.http_mods.

To enable all features the original BabelFish have, enable the following mods:

• babelfish_chat: Translate using %<code> shortcuts
• babelfish_preferred_langauge: Detect and set preferred languages
• babelfish_chat_history: Use /babel to translate chat history
• babelfish_private_chat: Use /bmsg to send private messages in the receiver's preferred language

You may want to run /bbmigrate to import old preferred languages. Use /bbmigrate override to override data collected under this new mod.

How to develop my mods? (as a developer)

Check out API.md for how to use BabelFish Redo in your mod.