writing multilingual plugins and themes - wcmia 2016

How to Make Multilingual Plugins and Themes

John P Bloch ● 2016-02-20 ● WordCamp Miami

About MeJohn P Bloch

Lead Web Engineer at 10up10up is hiringTell them I sent youSeriously, we’re always hiring

@johnpblochjohn.bloch@10up.com

Assumptions& Definitions

Assumptions

• You can write PHP• You are writing plugins or themes for distribution on the

wordpress.org repositories

Definitions

Internationalization

The process of making your code translatable at all.

Abbreviated as i18n

Localization

The process of using translated text in internationalized code.

Abbreviated as l10n

Definitions

Internationalization

The process of making your code translatable at all.

Abbreviated as i18n

Localization

The process of using translated text in internationalized code.

Abbreviated as l10n

Why should you care?

Why should you care?

• Empathy• More than half of all new WordPress installations are in languages

other than English

Why should you care?

• Empathy• Grow your potential user-base• Potentially make more money• Make more of an impact in the world

How to Internationalize Code

Text Domains

A text domain is a namespace for your code’s translations

Text domains need to be unique within plugins or themes

Use your plugin or theme slug

Text Domains – Loading Themes

load_theme_textdomain( $textdomain, $path // where your translations are)

Run on after_setup_theme action$path needs to be an absolute path

load_plugin_textdomain( $textdomain, false, // deprecated $path // where translation files are)

Run on plugins_loaded action$path is relative to wp-content/plugins

Text Domains – Loading Plugins

Plugin and Theme Headers

Plugins and themes have two special headers:

Text DomainDomain Path

Basic Translation Functions

__( $text, $textdomain )_e( $text, $textdomain )_n( $singular, $plural, $count, $textdomain)

Basic Translation Functions

$draft_count = get_my_drafts_count();printf( _n( 'I have one draft.', 'I have %s drafts.', $draft_count, 'my-textdomain'), $draft_count );

Basic Translation Functions

$draft_count = get_my_drafts_count();if( 1 === $draft_count ) { _e( 'I have one post.', 'my-textdomain' );} else { printf( __( 'I have %s drafts.', 'my-textdomain' ), $draft_count );}

Basic Translation Functions

_x( $text, $context, $textdomain )_ex( $text, $context, $textdomain )_nx( $singular, $plural, $count, $context, $textdomain)

Basic Translation Functions

You can also leave longer comments for the translators

printf( /* translators: The placeholder is the current user’s first name */ __( 'Hello, %s!', 'my-textdomain' ), $current_user->first_name);

Advanced Translation Functions

number_format_i18n( $number, $decimals = 0)

1234567.891,234,567.891.234.567,89

Advanced Translation Functions

date_i18n( $format, $timestamp = false, $gmt = false)

'F j Y''February 20 2016''Febbraio 20 2016'

Advanced Translation FunctionsHomework

Look up these translation functions:

wp_localize_script()esc_html__()esc_html_e()esc_html_x()

esc_attr__()esc_attr_e()esc_attr_x()

Final Steps

Final Steps

• Generate .pot file• Official repositories provide web tools

• Publish .pot file• Usually packaged with plugin or theme in the languages directory

• Add translation files to your plugin or theme• Or don’t. Plugins have language packs now.

Gotchas

Gotchas

• Line breaks• Empty strings• Formatted strings vs. interpolation

_e( "You live in $state", 'my-plugin' );

#: my-plugin.php:23msgid "You live in $state"msgstr ""

$state = 'Florida';// Lookup is "You live in Florida"

printf( __( 'You live in %s', 'my-plugin' ), $state);

Gotchas

• Line breaks• Empty strings• Formatted strings vs. interpolation• Word order and position

printf( __( 'Hi %s, you live in %s', 'my-plugin' ), $user_name, $state);

printf( __( 'Hi %1$s, you live in %2$s', 'my-plugin‘ ), $user_name, $state);

Best Practices

Best Practices

• Use decent English style• Avoid slang and abbreviations

• Keep text together• Break at paragraphs• Use formatted strings instead of

concatenation• Translate phrases not words

• No unnecessary HTML

• Make no assumptions about the translated text

• Length• Word order• Direction• Punctuation

• Avoid translating URLs that don’t have alternate languages available

Tools

• Pig Latin (http://w.org/plugins/piglatin/)• WP i18n Tools (develop.svn.wordpress.org/trunk/tools/i18n/)• PoEdit (https://poedit.net/)• GlotPress (http://blog.glotpress.org/)• Translate WordPress (https://translate.wordpress.org)

Questions?Twitter: @johnpbloch

Website: https://johnpbloch.comEmail: john.bloch@10up.com