Tag Archives: translation

Posted on
by

In the latest builds of Known, I’ve added support for Gettext translations. This can operate in tandem with the string array mechanism used previously, but it is my hope that using gettext will make translations easier, as there is a more complete tool chain available.

Creating .POT file

The first step, after you’ve used \Idno\Core\Idno::site()->language()->_() to write your strings, is to generate a POT template translation file. To do this, in /languages/ there’s a helpful script, go into this directory and run the script

./makepot.sh /path/to/your/plugin > /path/to/your/plugin/languages/

This will parse all your plugin’s PHP files and extract translatable strings.

Creating your translation

Open up your .POT file with a suitable tool, e.g. poedit, and save your .mo and .po files as /path/to/your/plugin/languages/LOCALE/LC_MESSAGES/DOMAIN.mo|po, where:

  • LOCALE is the locale you’re writing for, e.g. pt_BR
  • DOMAIN is the domain, e.g. your plugin name ‘myplugin’

Registering your translation

In your plugin, register your language by registering a new GetTextTranslation class, passing the path of your languages directory, and the domain you used.

So, for the above example this might look like:

function registerTranslations()
{
    \Idno\Core\Idno::site()->language()->register(
        new \Idno\Core\GetTextTranslation(
            'myplugin',
            dirname(__FILE__) . '/languages/'
        )
    );
}

Posted on
by

Known has a mechanism for translating text into other languages, and I’ve been working on this recently to try and make this ready for folk to begin adding translations.

When Known boots, it creates a new Language() object on the Idno object for the current language, which is addressable by \Idno\Core\Idno::site()->language();. Your code/plugin can add strings to this object for later use, usually by registering them on the registerTranslations() method hook.

Adding a translation for a language

It is possible to add single strings, one by one, for the current language, however the easiest way to register multiple strings is to extend Idno/Core/Translation for each language you want to translate, and then implement its getStrings() method.

It is then possible to add them all at once for each language (this way, Known will automatically select the appropriate translation for the loaded language).

E.g.

\Idno\Core\Idno::site()->language()->register(new \IdnoPlugins\Example\Languages\English('en'));
\Idno\Core\Idno::site()->language()->register(new \IdnoPlugins\Example\Languages\French('fr'));

Using a translation

Once a string has been registered, it is possible to echo the string, and have it translated:

E.g.

echo \Idno\Core\Idno::site()->language()->_('This is the string to translate');