💬 LangLink — Unity Community Translation Solution

LangLink is a localization import plugin designed for Unity that allows importing custom-formatted translation data at runtime.
Based on Unity's Localization package, LangLink provides convenient external language data import features, making it easy for anyone to integrate translation data into their game.

✨ Key Features

✅ Supports dynamic loading of custom-formatted translation data (e.g., TSV, CSV, defined by the developer)
🔁 Registers and switches language resources instantly at runtime
📦 Fully integrates with Unity Localization package system
🔌 Modular design for easy extension and maintenance
🌍 Allows players or community members to contribute language data, enhancing game internationalization
Whether you are an indie developer or a project team that needs multi-language support, LangLink provides an extensible and low-coupling language data management solution.

🚀 Quick Start

Easy Setup

The fastest way to start. Keep all default settings, and LangLink will automatically load all translation data under the streamingAssets/LangLink folder.

LangLink.SetupLangLink();

Translation Data

• Place translation files into the loading directory (default is StreamingAssets/LangLink)
• Default file format is CSV; you can specify other formats via LangLink.TargetFileFormat = "*.csv"
• Filename format: <locale>_<tableName>:
  • locale is the language name, which will appear in Unity’s language list
  • tableName corresponds to the table name in Unity Localization
  • You can customize the filename format via the IFileNameParser interface

Custom Translation Data Format

LangLink supports custom translation data formats. Developers can define their own format by implementing the ITableTxtToDictionary interface and registering it in LangLink.

public class MyTableTxtToDictionary : ITableTxtToDictionary
{
    public Dictionary<string, string> Convert(string filePath)
    {
        // Read the file and convert it to a dictionary
        // ...
        return new Dictionary<string, string>();
    }
}
public class Test 
{
    void Start()
    {
        // Register custom format translation parser
        LangLink.TableParser= new MyTableTxtToDictionary();
        // Setup LangLink
        LangLink.SetupLangLink();
    }
}

🔧 LangLink Core API

LangLink provides several core APIs for managing language data. Here are some commonly used ones:

• LangLink.SetupLangLink() — Start LangLink with default settings
• LangLink.SetupLangLinkAsync() — Start LangLink asynchronously

Advanced Usage

If you want to control the startup process of LangLink yourself, you can use the following APIs:

• LangLink.LoadCustomLocalization() — Load language data
• LangLink.LoadCustomLocalization(string path) — Load language data from a specified path
• LangLink.LoadCustomLocalizationAsync() — Load language data asynchronously
• LangLink.LoadCustomLocalizationAsync(string path) — Load language data asynchronously from a specified path
• LangLink.CreateCustomLocalization(string fileName, string tableTxt) — Create custom language data
• AssignTableProvider() — Register a table provider to Unity Localization

🛠️ Installation

Using Unity Package Manager (UPM)

"studio.daily.langlink" : "https://github.com/Daily999/langlink.git?path=LangLink"

✅ Dependencies
LangLink depends on the Unity Localization package. Please make sure your project has it installed:

Unity Localization (recommended version: 1.5.0 or above)
If not installed, you can install it via Package Manager:

Open Unity → Window > Package Manager
Search for "Localization"
Click Install

UniTask Support

LangLink supports UniTask for asynchronous operations, providing more efficient async handling.
Make sure UniTask is installed in your project, and import the UniTask namespace where needed.

LangLink internally uses define symbols to switch call methods,
and the define symbols are controlled by assembly definition files.

#if LANGLINK_SUPPORT_UNITASK
    // Use UniTask
   public static async UniTask<Dictionary<string, string>> LoadCustomLocalizationAsync()
#else
    // Standard method
    public static async Task<Dictionary<string, string>> LoadCustomLocalizationAsync()
#endif

The method signatures are the same, but the return types differ.

🌐 Community Translation Implementation Guidelines

Some implementation suggestions for community-driven translations.

📄 Provide Translation Sheets

Developers should provide a translation sheet that the community can use to contribute translations. If the content contains sensitive information (such as game story elements or easter eggs), it's recommended to establish a review mechanism.

🛡️ Monitor and Moderate

Community translations are contributed by users, so developers should actively monitor the content to prevent inappropriate or incorrect translations.

🗂️ File Naming

It’s possible to load multiple versions of the same language. You can add version identifiers in the file name, e.g.:

• 繁體中文<Daily漢化組>_UI
• 繁體中文<Google MT>_UI
  These versions will be displayed as separate languages in the game.

🪪 Preserve Translator Info

Since translations come from various contributors, developers can reserve a dedicated localization key for translators to include their name or credits in-game.

🔠 Translation Length

Translation length may affect UI layout, and overlapping or misaligned text might occur. Translators should try to keep text concise or use Rich Text formatting (if enabled), e.g.:

• Force line break: <br>
• Adjust font size: <size=20>

🌍 Culture Code

Unity Localization supports CultureInfo language codes, which may be used to display locale-specific data such as currency or date formats. LangLink will attempt to convert table key fields into valid CultureInfo codes and pass them to Unity Localization.

⚠️ However, this conversion is not guaranteed to be successful for all keys. Translators can check this list to ensure compatibility.

📘 Notes on CultureInfo Formatting

Unity Localization does not allow adding duplicate language codes, so LangLink uses "custom language codes" to support multiple language versions. If your game uses CultureInfo to dynamically format text, this can cause issues.

var culture = LocalizationSettings.SelectedLocale.Identifier.CultureInfo; // ❌ null!

Because custom language codes prevent Unity from creating a valid CultureInfo, LangLink provides the GetCurrentCultureInfo() method to retrieve the correct CultureInfo at runtime:

var cultureInfo = LangLink.GetCurrentCultureInfo();
var formattedNumber = (0.3).ToString("N2", cultureInfo);

// or
var formattedNumber2 = Smart.Format(cultureInfo, "{v:P}", new { v = 0.1234 });

🪪 License

MIT License. 🥳 If you find this useful, consider supporting me!