2 This document describes how to add a new language translation to PhpWiki.
4 If you just want to use one of the existing language translations, see
5 part three in 'index.php' to change the default language of your
6 Wiki. Modify the line that sets $LANG to use the two-letter code of
7 one of the supported languages, like this:
9 // Select your language/locale - default language "C": English
10 // other languages available: Dutch "nl", Spanish "es", German "de",
11 // Swedish "sv", and Italian, "it".
16 Phpwiki uses GNU gettext tools to provide and maintain multi-lingual
17 messages for different languages. Even if you are already familiar
18 with xgettext you will want to read this document to be aware of
19 translation issues and tips specific to PhpWiki; perhaps skimming
20 through the Makefile section.
22 PhpWiki does not require gettext support to be compiled in to PHP. It
23 automatically provides a pure PHP replacement in case it's not available.
28 The modern English language has no clear rules for differentiating
29 between the formal and informal use of the spoken word. This both
30 simplifies and complicates matters for translators, as many languages
31 do still make such a distinction. For the most part, PhpWiki is written
32 using the casual forms of messages and explanatory text--after all the
33 WikiWikiWeb is an open and friendly place. :-)
35 However, there is no reason why translations of Wiki commands like
36 "Edit" or "FindPages" should not be written formally. For the sake of
37 recognition or clarity when the word function is the same as another
38 common computer term or menu-item, if you feel it would be more
39 effective to employ a formal variation then please do so. When the
40 formal word is significantly longer than the informal word, make a
41 judgement call or substitute an abbreviation, provided that it will
44 Remember that a good and thorough translation is a subjective and
45 collective process. Once people have had a chance to test-drive your
46 newly-translated PhpWiki there will always be suggestions for
47 reshaping and improving it.
49 Diversity and Change are part of WikiEssence. By all means don't
50 belabour the translation process, and have some fun!
55 The general steps to creating a new language module for PhpWiki:
57 1. Copy and rename the master template to create a new file for your
58 language ('phpwiki.pot' => 'xx.po').
60 2. Translate all the strings in the new language file ('.po file').
62 3. Run 'make' to automatically create or update any additional files
63 ('.po' => '.mo' => 'phpwiki.php' files).
65 4. Create translations of the content for the default pages ('pgsrc'
71 Let's assume for example that you would like to add an Islandic
72 translation to PhpWiki.
77 Duplicate the file phpwiki.pot in the 'locale/po/' folder and name it
78 'is.po' ('is' is the code for Islandic). Next, translate all the
79 strings inside 'is.po' from English to Islandic. Unix Hint: Emacs has
80 a handy "po translation mode" for you. See README.coding in the doc folder.
82 Important note about character encoding:
83 Currently all the language files are saved using the ISO-8859-1
84 character encoding to preserve accented characters. Make sure the text
85 editor you use is capable of performing the appropriate Latin-1
86 translation. Strictly speaking, ISO-8859-1 is *different* than Windows
87 code page 1252 or MacRoman. Upon quick inspection one will notice that
88 many of the letters do occupy the same positions in each of their'
89 respective encoding tables, so it is easy to understand how people can
90 make this false assumption.
95 Different languages have different word ordering requirements. When a
96 key word such as a person's name needs to be added to the end of a
97 sentence in english, there is no guarantee that the same word will
98 appear at the end of a sentence once translated to another language.
100 PhpWiki has been designed with this in mind. (Standard gettext
101 notations like %s and %1$s, %2$s will work with PhpWiki, even though
102 reordering of variable-substitutions is not actually part of PHP).
104 Take the following English phrase as an example. This message would be
105 displayed in the browser when someone wants to compare two revisions
106 of a Wiki page. The corresponding entry for the German translation for
107 this phrase (from the file 'de.po') reads:
109 #: ../lib/diff.php:251
111 msgid "Differences between %s and %s of %s."
112 msgstr "Der Unterschiedsergebnis von %3$s, zwischen %1$s und %2$s"
114 In the English version, PhpWiki will substitute the phrases "version
115 1", "version 2" and the name of the page being compared. The
116 placeholder '%s' indicates where text will later be substituted, while
117 '%d' is used to indicate a number will be inserted.
119 Sentence structure of German is different than English, and this case
120 dictates that the "page name" must come first, then followed by
121 "Verson 1." and finally "Version 2."
123 To summarize, when the word ordering must differ, insert "1$", "2$"
124 etc. into the middle of '%s' and repeat for each instance of '%s' in
127 Here are a couple more examples. They are fictional but they serve to
128 illustrate how to handle special cases, should they arise:
131 #msgid "Page version '%d' named '%s' is not available."
132 #msgstr "Xyqlmn vvvm » %s « mnqee » %d « Gvbbbnbhkkk eeek."
134 Even though %s and %d are reversed, no '1$' and '2$ are needed because
135 one is a text string and the other is a number. The punctuation marks
136 for this language dictate extra spacing, so this has also been accounted
137 for in the translation (i.e. the quote marks are only for emphasis, they
138 are not considered part of the %s placeholder).
141 #msgid "Page named '%s' version '%d' written by author '%s' is not available."
142 #msgstr "Qppn wwmoooppp '%2$s' vvvm '%1$s' mnqee '%d' Gvbbbnbhkkk eeek."
144 Name and author are reversed. No special treatment is needed for the
145 number, because it is the only one present. The punctuation for this
146 particular language is the same as english so it is unchanged.
149 While translating the text strings if you are uncertain about the
150 syntax, look at the '.po' files of the other languages as an
151 example. If you are stuck or simply can't make any sense of all this,
152 just ask one of the PhpWiki programmers on the mailing list to help
155 The 'phpwiki.php' files do not need to be created or edited because
156 the Makefile will create and update these files automatically. See the
157 'Makefile' section below.
162 Most of the work will be in the translation of the default pgsrc
163 files. As a starting point you can copy the English 'pgsrc' directory:
166 cp -rv pgsrc locale/is
168 For these 'pgsrc' files it will be sufficient to change the page names
169 to Islandic, and maybe translate the HomePage and give it an Islandic
170 name. Again, for anything you don't know, look at the 'nl' or 'de'
173 The best approach to translating the default page content is to do all
174 of your page editing in the web browser itself, then perform a page
175 dump to save the pages as MIME text files. Some of the pages are
176 locked so you will have to log into PhpWiki as the administrator
177 before you can edit them.
180 Add instructions for editing MIME headers of files before moving
181 files into '/locale/is/pgsrc'
183 - keep modification date, page name and lock, remove author.
185 Content-Type: application/x-phpwiki;
186 pagename= PhpWikiSystemverwalten;
188 lastmodified=1008730541;
189 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
191 - Make sure to rename files with accents in the page name.
192 (e.g. "GästeBuch" => "G%E4steBuch" )
194 - Translate body text and rename plugin pages to match changes
195 specified in the '.po' file.
197 <?plugin RecentChanges days=3D4 show_all=3D1 show_minor=3D1?>
204 The Makefile calls 'xgettext' to automatically perform a number of
205 important translation tasks:
207 * Scans through all the source code and retrieves the english
208 strings used as text arguments, then collects and indexes them into
209 the file 'phpwiki.pot'.
211 * Merges any new differences of the collected English text strings
212 with similar text strings found during any previous runs of 'make',
213 stored inside each of the translated '.po' files.
215 * Makes note of which English text strings have been added, reworded
216 or removed. The translated strings in the '.po' files are then marked
217 as "Fuzzy" translations for all cases where the English text has been
218 changed. This makes it easy for translators to spot which items need
219 to be updated. (Emacs' po mode also uses this information).
221 * The necessary '.mo' files and 'phpwiki.php' text files are
222 synchronized and sorted according to the translated contents of the
223 '.po' files, for each of the locale subdirectories.
225 When a new language module is added to PhpWiki, the 'Makefile' in the
226 'locale' folder also needs to be updated. Add the two-letter gettext
227 language code to the list of all languages known to PhpWiki, by
228 changing the variable ALL_LINGUAS. In this example 'is' was added for
231 ALL_LINGUAS="nl es de sv it is"
233 To start the 'Makefile' process, change to the 'locale' directory
234 before invoking the 'make' command:
239 Make will then automatically generate and update all the necessary
240 files. If this step fails because you don't have the necessary
241 software installed, then send your '.po' files to one of the PhpWiki
242 developers who will run Makefile for you.
247 The template files do not need to be translated. As of PhpWiki 1.3 all
248 the text strings in the html templates are cross-referenced with the
249 translations in the '.po' files.
251 *** Note: Updating html template translations from PhpWiki 1.2 to 1.3: ***
253 The translated version of the tips for TextFormattingRules must be
254 moved from the old html template 'editpage.html', and placed into the
255 'pgsrc' for the default page of TextFormattingRules. A plugin now
256 extracts this text and inserts it when editing a page in PhpWiki,
257 rather than it being embedded within the html template itself.
259 It is suggested this paragraph would go at the top of the page. It
260 must be in a section heading entitled "Summary" in order for the
261 editpage template to find it. Of course you will substitute the
262 translations for "TextFormattingRules" and "Summary", according to the
263 wording you used for these phrases when you translated the '.po' file.
265 Refer to the English "TextFormattingRules" and German (de)
266 "TextFormatierungsRegeln" pages to see working examples.
271 After you have finished translating, you will want to see the result
272 of your efforts. Change the $LANG setting in 'index.php' to the
273 two-letter code for your language.
275 Et voilà, Phpwiki should now speak Islandic!
277 If your translation was a success, you may also want to add a
278 translation of these instructions for translating PhpWiki ;-)
282 To learn more about GNU gettext and '.po' files, you may find some
285 <http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/po/HTML/>
286 <http://www.gnu.org/directory/gettext>
289 Jan Nieuwenhuizen <janneke@gnu.org>
290 Arno Hollosi <ahollosi@mail.com>
291 Carsten Klapp <carstenklapp@mac.com>
293 $Id: README,v 1.4 2001-12-27 07:33:23 carstenklapp Exp $