Configuration

All settings live in the LIVE_TRANSLATIONS dictionary in your Django settings. Every key is optional.

LIVE_TRANSLATIONS = {
    "BACKEND": "live_translations.backends.po.POFileBackend",
    "LANGUAGES": ["en", "cs", "de"],
    "LOCALE_DIR": BASE_DIR / "locale",
}

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

BACKEND

Translation storage backend. Dotted import path or class reference.

Default: "live_translations.backends.po.POFileBackend"

See Backends for setup and comparison.

CACHE

Django cache alias for cross-process invalidation. Only used by the database backend.

Default: "default"

The cache must be shared across processes (Redis, Memcached, etc.). LocMemCache and DummyCache will not work in production.

GETTEXT_DOMAIN

Gettext domain, the basename of .po/.mo catalog files. For example, "django" resolves to django.po/django.mo, while "djangojs" targets djangojs.po/djangojs.mo.

Default: "django"

LANGUAGES

Language codes available for editing. When not set, derived from Django's settings.LANGUAGES.

Default: codes from settings.LANGUAGES

settings.py

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

Languages listed here but absent from Django's settings.LANGUAGES become draft languages.

LOCALE_DIR

Path to the locale directory containing {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

Callable that controls access to the editing UI. Receives an HttpRequest, returns True (full access), False (no access), or a set[str] of language codes for per-language access.

Default: authenticated superusers only

Accepts a dotted import path or function reference. See Permissions for examples.

TRANSLATION_ACTIVE_BY_DEFAULT

Whether newly saved translations are immediately active.

Default: False

When False, overrides require explicit activation before they take effect. Set to True if you want saves to go live immediately.

SHORTCUT_EDIT

Keyboard shortcut to toggle edit mode. Format: +-separated modifiers and key (case-insensitive).

Default: "ctrl+shift+e"

Available modifiers: ctrl, shift, alt, meta.

SHORTCUT_PREVIEW

Keyboard shortcut to toggle preview mode. Same format as SHORTCUT_EDIT.

Default: "ctrl+shift+p"

Draft languages

Any language code listed in LANGUAGES that is not present in Django's settings.LANGUAGES is treated as a draft language. This lets you prepare translations for a new locale before publishing it to users.

LANGUAGES = [
    ("en", "English"),
    ("cs", "Czech"),
]

LIVE_TRANSLATIONS = {
    "LANGUAGES": ["en", "cs", "de"],  # (1)!
}

1. "de" is a draft language because it's not in LANGUAGES.

Draft language behavior:

• Visible in the editor modal and language switcher, marked with a "Draft" badge
• Translations are always saved as active. The active/inactive toggle is hidden because the entire language is unpublished, so "inactive" has no meaning. This also ensures translations survive makemessages, which preserves msgstr values but may strip custom comments.
• Switching to a draft language sets a middleware cookie (lt_lang) that overrides Django's active language for that session, without changing the URL
• Invisible to users who don't pass the permission check

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

System checks

django-live-translations runs Django system checks on startup to catch configuration issues early.

Run checks manually:

python manage.py check live_translations

See Troubleshooting for more on resolving these.