Configuration

All configuration is done through the LIVE_TRANSLATIONS dictionary in your Django settings. Every key is optional - sensible defaults are derived from Django's own settings.

# settings.py
LIVE_TRANSLATIONS = {
    "BACKEND": "live_translations.backends.po.POFileBackend",
    "LANGUAGES": ["en", "cs", "de"],  # optional, defaults to settings.LANGUAGES
    "LOCALE_DIR": BASE_DIR / "locale",  # optional, defaults to LOCALE_PATHS[0]
}

from typing import TYPE_CHECKING

if TYPE_CHECKING:
    from live_translations.conf import LiveTranslationsSettings

LIVE_TRANSLATIONS: "LiveTranslationsSettings" = {
    "BACKEND": "live_translations.backends.db.DatabaseBackend",
    "CACHE": "translations",
}

Settings reference

Settings details

BACKEND

Choose between the two built-in backends:

# PO file backend (default) - reads/writes .po files directly
LIVE_TRANSLATIONS = {
    "BACKEND": "live_translations.backends.po.POFileBackend",
}

# Database backend - stores overrides in the DB
LIVE_TRANSLATIONS = {
    "BACKEND": "live_translations.backends.db.DatabaseBackend",
}

See Backends for a detailed comparison.

CACHE

Only relevant when using the DatabaseBackend. The cache is used to synchronize translation overrides across multiple processes (e.g. gunicorn workers).

CACHES = {
    "translations": {
        "BACKEND": "django.core.cache.backends.redis.RedisCache",
        "LOCATION": "redis://127.0.0.1:6379/1",
    }
}

LIVE_TRANSLATIONS = {
    "BACKEND": "live_translations.backends.db.DatabaseBackend",
    "CACHE": "translations",
}

LANGUAGES

By default, languages are derived from Django's settings.LANGUAGES. Set this explicitly to limit which languages appear in the editor:

LIVE_TRANSLATIONS = {
    "LANGUAGES": ["en", "cs"],  # only English and Czech
}

Draft languages

Any language listed in LANGUAGES that is not present in Django's settings.LANGUAGES is automatically treated as a draft language. Draft languages are fully editable by translators but are not served to regular users.

This lets you prepare translations for a new locale before publishing it:

# settings.py
LANGUAGES = [
    ("en", "English"),
    ("cs", "Czech"),
]

LIVE_TRANSLATIONS = {
    "LANGUAGES": ["en", "cs", "de"],  # "de" is a draft language
}

Draft languages:

• Appear in the language switcher in the hint bar with a "Draft" badge
• Are fully editable from the translation modal (also marked with a "Draft" badge)
• Are always saved as active - the active/inactive toggle is hidden. Since the entire language is unpublished, there is no need for a separate "inactive" state. This also ensures translations survive makemessages (which preserves msgstr values but may strip internal comments used for inactive overrides)
• Are switched via a middleware cookie override (lt_lang) - the page renders in the draft language without URL changes
• Are invisible to users who don't pass the PERMISSION_CHECK

Once ready, add the language to Django's LANGUAGES setting and it becomes a published language automatically.

LOCALE_DIR

The directory containing your {lang}/LC_MESSAGES/ subdirectories. Resolution order:

1. LIVE_TRANSLATIONS["LOCALE_DIR"] (if set)
2. settings.LOCALE_PATHS[0] (if defined)
3. settings.BASE_DIR / "locale" (fallback)

PERMISSION_CHECK

Override the default superuser check with a custom callable. See Permissions for detailed examples.

LIVE_TRANSLATIONS = {
    "PERMISSION_CHECK": "myapp.permissions.can_edit_translations",
}

SHORTCUT_EDIT / SHORTCUT_PREVIEW

Customize keyboard shortcuts using +-separated modifier names and a key character (case-insensitive):

LIVE_TRANSLATIONS = {
    "SHORTCUT_EDIT": "ctrl+shift+t",
    "SHORTCUT_PREVIEW": "ctrl+shift+r",
}

Available modifiers: ctrl, shift, alt, meta.

System checks

django-live-translations registers Django system checks that run on startup:

Run checks manually with:

python manage.py check live_translations