Provide a way to disallow users to add languages

[softworkz]

Describe the problem

It happened the second time today:

• A new user came to the site
• For some reason (the exact path isn't clear to me), they felt like they'd need to add a new language
  (interstingly, in both cases it was pt - even though we already have pt-PT and pt-BR)
• The language got added to all components in Weblate
• Shortly after, 7 of our code repos received PRs including the new language
  (that's a custom mechanism, but doesn't matter)

After it happened for the 1st time, I had researched for disabling it with permissions, but the default team cannot be changed and there do not seem to be 'deny' permissions, so I just changed the UI, so it doesn't show the "+" button at the top.

Now, I discovered that there are more "Add language" buttons and I'm not sure whether that's all or whether there are even more was for adding a language.

Solution brainstorm

A way is needed for preventing regular/default users from adding new languages.

---

I apologize when there's an existing way to do this, which I just don't see.
(yet I hope there is...)

Thanks a lot!

[nijel]

Add language for translation permission is included in default user permissions. More info can be found at https://docs.weblate.org/en/latest/admin/access.html.

[softworkz]

More info can be found at docs.weblate.org/en/latest/admin/access.html.

Yes I know. I've read that page many times...

is included in default user permissions

That's the actual problem - how can it be revoked/denied for default users?

Thanks

[ScribbleTAS]

So I know that in the component settings under "Files", there is an "Adding new translation" option. Where you can disable this on a component by component basis.

However, I am aware that it says "The language got added to all components in Weblate"... I haven't had the chance to use multiple components, so I'm not sure how adding a language behaves with multiple components but maybe it's worth a try

Alternatively to remove the permission, a somewhat workaround is to go to the team settings in the site-wide settings

And choose "Translate" instead of "Power User"

It's not the fine grained permission system you probably hoped for, but at least for now, it gets rid of the "Add new translation" permission https://docs.weblate.org/en/latest/admin/access.html#list-of-built-in-roles and I think it's a good Role for users in general...

And yes, I am also searching for a more fine grained system, but I haven't found it yet...

[softworkz]

So I know that in the component settings under "Files", there is an "Adding new translation" option. Where you can disable this on a component by component basis.

However, I am aware that it says "The language got added to all components in Weblate"... I haven't had the chance to use multiple components, so I'm not sure how adding a language behaves with multiple components but maybe it's worth a try

Thanks a lot for the help - it actually did help!

I knew that setting, but I thought it would be a kind of fundamental setting which would also disallow admins and the various automattion tasks ("add-ons") from adding a new language. It's kind of odd that it controls the users'abilities instead.
From the 7 components in the project is was disabled for 4 and enabled for 3. But the language got added to all components.
(edit: I see - that was probably due to the "Add missing languages" add-on )

Alternatively to remove the permission, a somewhat workaround is to go to the team settings in the site-wide settings
And choose "Translate" instead of "Power User"

Have you tried to save that change? AFAIR, when I wanted to make a change, it said something like that the built-in teams cannot be modified...

I haven't had the chance to use multiple components,

27 components in 4 projects... (It's gotta be like that, because these go all into different code repos)

It's practically not feasible with the built-in UI to ensure a consistent configuration across so many components. I've created an automated test suite which runs several times a day and checks vor many different things about the server machine, conditions, log files, backups being performed etc etc and it also checks component settings against a reference set of options. Stupidly, I hadn't included that specific one, but it also checks languages against a refernce list. Without that alarm, I might not even have noticed it happening..

Anyway - thanks! This got it disabled for all normal users.

[ScribbleTAS]

Have you tried to save that change? AFAIR, when I wanted to make a change, it said something like that the built-in teams cannot be modified...

Yes, for me it works and I can see on a test account that it doesn't show the option for requesting translations anymore... I'm using something selfhosted, I have seen that hosted.weblate does not support some things permission wise...

Anyway - thanks! This got it disabled for all normal users.

Would you mind marking this question as answered and selecting my post? This is kind of my first time using discussions on github and I want to learn how it works...

[softworkz]

I'm using something selfhosted, I have seen that hosted.weblate does not support some things permission wise...

We're self-hosting as well (https://translate.emby.media/) with quite a package of customizations (like custom IPB/Invision forums OAuth authentication, a memory-savy Celery worker configuration and everything I've talked about in other issues and PRs I opened here), plus various visual changes, most notably, pulling out the in-page buttons as a secondary menu bar. 😉

Would you mind marking this question as answered and selecting my post? This is kind of my first time using discussions on github and I want to learn how it works...

Sure!