aigc-home/docs/changelogs/2026-09-16-bilingual-ui.md

Calliope 1.5.2 — bilingual UI (English / 中文) and one-command local start

Every user-facing string used to be hardcoded English, spread across ~60 components — so a Chinese-speaking user saw an English UI no matter how the app was configured, and there was no single place to change a label. This release routes the whole interface through a dictionary layer with a language switcher in the header.

What changed

• Full en/zh dictionary — 1001 keys, mirrored 1:1 between en.ts and zh.ts. Both are typed against Dict (typeof en), so the compiler rejects a translation that is missing a key.
• Every component wired through t() — nav rail, canvas, projects, story, assets, script, queue, the video workspace, Build Scene, settings, agent chat, toasts, and the error paths. No hardcoded English copy remains in the UI.
• Language switcher in the header — English / 中文. The choice is stored in localStorage (calliope-lang) and applied on reload; a missing or unrecognized value falls back to English.
• Placeholder interpolation — t('key', { name: … }) substitutes {name}, with a count shorthand that also fills {n}, the convention most count-bearing strings use.
• Genre / tone / duration options moved into formOptions.ts, mapping the English values the backend stores onto dictionary keys — so stored project data keeps working regardless of the display language.
• Local start/stop scripts — setup.bat (idempotent first-time install), start.bat (two visible windows), start-bg.bat (background, output to logs/), and stop.bat.

Upgrade

No migration and no new dependencies. git pull, then reload the frontend — an npm install in calliope-web/ is only needed if you are coming from an older release. The UI defaults to English; switch to 中文 with the dropdown in the header.