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Languages and text size

Homestead ships in three languages, all first-class: English, Simplified Chinese (家园) and Thai. Every screen is also designed to work at 160 % text size, in light and dark themes.

Change language, theme or text size

Section titled “Change language, theme or text size”

  1. Select the Aa button (Appearance) in the app’s header. It’s there at every screen width.

  2. Choose:

    • Language: English, 中文（简体） or ไทย. The app switches straight away, without reloading.
    • Theme: System, Light or Dark.
    • Text size: 100 %, 115 %, 130 % or 160 %.
    • Reduce motion.

These choices are saved in this browser. The full Settings → Appearance screen, with a live preview card and saving to your profile so they follow you to other devices, is coming.

Available on main

You can also pick a language on the setup screen and from the switcher on the login screen.

Which language you get

Section titled “Which language you get”

Homestead picks the first of these that’s set:

  1. Your own language setting.
  2. The household’s default language (set by the owner).
  3. Your browser’s or phone’s languages.
  4. English.

Browser languages map like this: Chinese with the Simplified script or region China or Singapore becomes Simplified Chinese. Traditional Chinese (zh-TW, zh-HK, zh-Hant) also becomes Simplified Chinese for now, with a one-time note that Traditional Chinese is coming. Thai becomes Thai. Everything else becomes English.

How each language is shown

Section titled “How each language is shown”
  • Dates in Thai use the Buddhist calendar.
  • Names sort in your language’s order: pinyin order for Chinese, dictionary order for Thai.
  • Search finds Chinese names by full pinyin or initials (wangxiaoming, wxm), and Thai names with or without tone marks.
  • Fonts are bundled with the app (Fraunces and Inter). Chinese and Thai body text uses your system fonts. Nothing is loaded from a font service.
  • What people write isn’t translated. Names, notes and posts stay as written. Platform names come in each language from the registry.

Reduce motion

Section titled “Reduce motion”

With Reduce motion on, or when your device asks for less motion, the story viewer stops moving on by itself and shows a Next button instead.

Large text for relatives

Section titled “Large text for relatives”

For a parent or grandparent, set the text size to 130 % or 160 % on their device and make them a viewer, so the screens stay simple. See Invite family.

Languages after 1.0

Section titled “Languages after 1.0”

Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese are candidates, not scheduled.