Translation Management

Applies to: v5.0.0 and later

web2project ships with several translations in the locales folder. More are in the locales repository. To use one, copy its folder into locales/ and choose the language under Preferences in the user menu, or set it for everyone with the Host Locale setting and the default user preferences in System Admin.

Creating a translation

So you want to create your own Translation. The good news is that it’s easy. Just follow these instructions to get started:

• Go to your web2project installation and locate the locales folder.
• Copy the /path/to/web2project/locales/en folder and its contents to, e.g. /path/to/web2project/locales/sr
  • In this example, we’re translating from English - en, to Serbian - sr, so wherever you see sr you should change that to the short code of the language you’re translating to.
  • Specific dialects of a language should be noted. For example, Portuguese is pt while Brazilian Portuguese is pt_br.

• Make the new folder writable by the user your web server runs as, so the translation editor can save to it. On Linux, for example:

    sudo chown -R www-data /path/to/web2project/locales/sr
  

  Use your web server’s user in place of www-data (apache or nginx on some systems). Don’t make the folder writable by everyone (chmod 777). Strings for Add On modules that keep their own translations are saved in the module’s locales/sr folder instead, so make that writable too if you translate them.

  • If you’re on a Windows system, make the folder writable by the web server’s user.
• Open up in your favourite editor the /path/to/web2project/locales/sr/lang.php file and edit it according to the instructions in that file. When you’re done, save and close.
• Log in to your web2project installation, go to System Admin and then to Translation Management.
• At the top you will see two select boxes: the first for the part of the system you’re translating (Module), the second for the Language.
• Choose the part of the system you want to translate and the new language you are translating to.
• Translate, hit submit. That’s about it.
• When you’re done, make the folder read-only for the web server again.
• We’d appreciate if you’d contribute your translation to web2project. Simply follow the directions in our README and your contribution will be shared with thousands. Thank you! :)

The editor only saves to languages that already have a folder in locales/ and to installed modules.

Translation file format

Since v5.0, translation (.inc) files are read as data, not run as PHP. Each line is a quoted English string, =>, and the quoted translation, followed by a comma:

'Add a Todo'=>'Ajouter une tâche',
"Task Name"=>"Nom de la tâche",

Single or double quotes both work, and comments are allowed. An entry that contains anything else, such as a variable, a function call or text joined with ., is skipped, and that string shows in English. Translation files written for older versions usually work unchanged; check any that built strings with PHP code.

lang.php in each language folder is still PHP; it describes the language and isn’t affected.

If you have questions or comments, ask in the community discussions.