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🚀 Getting Started with RimLoc

RimLoc helps you inventory, validate, and ship translations for RimWorld mods. This guide is a simple step‑by‑step path for newcomers.

See also the glossary: glossary.md

1) Install (1–2 minutes)

  • Via Cargo: bash cargo install rimloc-cli
  • Or download a prebuilt binary from Releases and run it directly.

More: install.md · install_run.md

2) First run — scan and validate

Assume your mod lives in ./Mods/MyMod.

rimloc-cli scan --root ./Mods/MyMod --format json > scan.json
rimloc-cli validate --root ./Mods/MyMod
  • scan inventories strings and saves them (for a quick look).
  • validate catches duplicates, empties, and placeholder issues.

3) Export a .po for translators

rimloc-cli export-po --root ./Mods/MyMod --out-po ./MyMod.ru.po --lang ru

Open it in Poedit or your preferred CAT tool and translate.

More: cli/export_import.md

rimloc-cli validate-po --po ./MyMod.ru.po --strict --format text

This ensures placeholders in msgid/msgstr match exactly.

More: cli/validate_po.md

5) Import translations back into the mod

Single file for review:

rimloc-cli import-po --po ./MyMod.ru.po --out-xml ./Mods/MyMod/_Imported.xml --dry-run
rimloc-cli import-po --po ./MyMod.ru.po --out-xml ./Mods/MyMod/_Imported.xml

Structured import (release‑ready):

rimloc-cli import-po --po ./MyMod.ru.po --mod-root ./Mods/MyMod --lang ru --report --dry-run
rimloc-cli import-po --po ./MyMod.ru.po --mod-root ./Mods/MyMod --lang ru --report

6) Build a translation‑only mod (optional)

rimloc-cli build-mod --po ./MyMod.ru.po --out-mod ./MyMod_RU --lang ru --dry-run
rimloc-cli build-mod --po ./MyMod.ru.po --out-mod ./MyMod_RU --lang ru

7) Next steps

  • From scratch: tutorials/translate_mod.md
  • Updating an existing translation: tutorials/update_translations.md
  • FAQ: faq.md
  • Troubleshooting: troubleshooting.md