Collecting messages from 3rd party apps in Django

Question

How can I generate messages (manage.py makemessages) from 3rd party library which is located in virtualenv directory?

I tried simply add the messages to the .po file, but everytime I run makemessages command my translation vanishes.

Many thanks

Answer 1

manage.py makemessages looks only for directories under the current dir. So you have to create symlink from 3rd party app to your project's directory:

ln -s ~/.virtualenvs/myvenv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/app app
mkdir locale
python manage.py makemessages -l cz -s

Note the -s option. It forces makemessages to follow symlinks.

The other caveat is if the app is already localized then .po file will be created under app/locale/cz directory instead of your locale.