Support

June 27, 2012 at 12:48 pm

Contributing to Event Espresso Core Language files

Did you know that your forum username will give you access to our web-based GlotPress site for translations?  Well, it does.  All you need to do to log in and start submitting translation strings is plug in the same username and password you use to access our forums and your account.  That will let you submit translations (though you’ll need to have your submitted translations approved by a validator), but if you want recognition for your efforts, you’ll need to do a couple other things first.

1) Fill out the Translator Application.  This lets us know that you want to be a translator so we know what language you’ll be working on, allows us to update your account accordingly and set up any new languages that need to be created if one doesn’t already exist.  Translators will get special recognition on their profile page and in the forum with a unique badge that is applied just to translators.  Validators will get a different badge, and will be able to submit translation strings directly to the language file as well as approve submitted language strings.

2) Log into the GlotPress site and get to it!  The GlotPress site is pretty easy to navigate.  GlotPress is built on backPress — a core framework and API built on WordPress’ own code — and is used by a lot of plugins and themes for managing translations.  All the translation strings can be submitted from the front end (once you are logged in) and have many of the same capabilities as WordPress posts (like permalinks to a specific translation string).  (While there are links to specific files that use a translation string, these links currently just point to the Event Espresso home page as we don’t use Trac or have a public repository for the source php files.)

If you have any questions about submitting translations to Event Espresso via the GlotPress site, feel free to post in this forum.  While we can take full .po files, we really prefer using the GlotPress site as this allows multiple translators to be working simultaneously and there can be problems with a badly formatted .po file that makes it  unreadable or unusable in the plugin.  .po files can be directly imported into GlotPress and validators can export .po files from GlotPress (though these need to be renamed and have some settings updated after the export).  We periodically will update the language files in the core stable and development plugin, and updates to the language file are usually added to the next release.  Information about individual language files can be found on the Languages page or on the GlotPress site.

Translators who complete a translation to 85% complete or more will receive a coupon code to use toward an add-on or upgrade.  In addition, validators who are actively maintaining the language file (adding strings when necessary & approving submitted translations) will additionally receive access to VIP Member privileges (additional support, documentation & screencasts).  This VIP access will continue as long as the translation validator is actively maintaining and contributing to the language file(s).

Creating/using your own language files

In some cases, you may just want to change a few strings in the English language file, or just change the front-facing strings and not the back-end strings.  This document provides some information and resources for setting up a local environment to translate Event Espresso.  Pay special attention to the links and resources at the bottom if you have any questions about how to create a language file.  The filename for your language file (if you are creating one for a new language) is event_espresso-_.po — where “language” and “LOCALE” are the 2-character ISO codes that apply to your language and region.