Localization

dosbox-automation automatically detects your host operating system's language, country, and keyboard layout, so in most cases everything works out of the box. The auto-detection checks the list of preferred languages in your OS preferences, matches keyboard layouts from your configured host layouts, and selects an appropriate country code. If you need to override the defaults --- perhaps you're running a German game on an English system, or you need a specific date format - the settings below let you fine-tune the regional behavior.

Interface language

The language setting controls the language of dosbox-automation's own interface messages (not the DOS programs themselves). It can be changed at runtime via config -set language=pl. Available translations: German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Russian.

dosbox-automation uses the gettext .po translation file format, which makes contributing translations straightforward with tools like Poedit.

Country and date/time formatting

The country setting controls DOS-level formatting conventions: date and time format, decimal separators, currency symbols, and so on. The default auto detects the appropriate country from your host OS settings.

The locale_period setting controls whether formatting follows historic DOS conventions (how things looked on a real DOS PC of the era), modern conventions (consistent with current-day practice), or your host OS's native settings. The default native mode reuses your desktop's display formats where the DOS locale system can represent them.

Keyboard layout and code pages

The keyboard_layout setting selects the DOS keyboard layout, determining which characters are produced by which keys. The default auto detects your layout from the host OS. A layout can include a code page suffix - for example, uk 850 selects the British layout with a Western European screen font.

Code pages control which character set is available on screen. dosbox-automation bundles the FreeDOS ISO, KOI, MAC, and WIN code page packages, providing broad coverage of Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. After startup, use the KEYB command to manage keyboard layouts and code pages at runtime (run HELP KEYB for details).

To see what's available, start dosbox-automation with the following command line arguments:

• --list-countries

  • lists all supported countries with their numeric codes

• --list-layouts

  • lists all supported keyboard layouts with their codes

• --list-code-pages

  • lists all bundled code pages (screen fonts)

Configuration settings

The language setting is in the [dosbox] section; the rest are in [dos].

Interface language

language

Select the language of dosbox-automation's interface messages.

Possible values:

• auto (default) -- Detect the language from the host OS preferred languages list.
• <value> -- Load a translation from the given file.

Regional settings

country

Set DOS country code (auto by default). This affects country-specific information such as date, time, and decimal formats. If set to auto, it selects the country code reflecting the host OS settings.

keyboard_layout

Keyboard layout code (auto by default). Set to auto to guess the values from the host OS settings. The layout can be followed by the code page number, e.g., uk 850 selects a Western European screen font. After startup, use the KEYB command to manage keyboard layouts and code pages (run HELP KEYB for details).

locale_period

Set locale epoch.

Possible values: