Translate a plugin using .po .mo files

I want to translate this plugin.

The plugin has already been translated into other languages and it has .pot files for adding new languages (as far as I understood from description).

How do I create .po and .mo files for my new language and make them accessible so as to be used by the plugin? I’ve tried to define Russian language in my wp-config.php file by inserting the definition below:

define ('WPLANG', 'ru_RU');

Answers:

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Method 1

The Editor

There are others, but this is most used: Poedit, a cross-platform gettext catalogs (.po files) editor.

The Formats

• .mo stands for Machine Object
  — compiled export of the .po file which is used by WordPress
• .po stands for Portable Object
  — editable text file with the translations strings
  — based on the master .pot file, using Update from POT file PoEdit function
  — some folks distribute this as a master file, but it should be used only for translations
• .pot stands for Portable Object Template
  — editable text file used to grab all the translatable strings from WordPress itself and Themes and Plugins, using Update from Sources PoEdit function

The Procedure

• Duplicate the .pot file and rename it to plugin-basename-lang_COUNTRY.po
• Example for the referenced plugin case: subscribe-reloaded-pt_BR.po
  — pt_BR means Portuguese Brazil, but many languages don’t have a country variation…
  — you’ll have to fill in with your own language
• WPLANG in wp-config.php file must be set to your language, e.g., pt_BR
• Every time you save the .po file, PoEdit automatically generates a .mo file, which is the one WordPress uses and basically the only one you need to upload

Observations

• If you do a full or a decent partial translation, submit it to the plugin author so he can include it in the Repository and you get credited for it
• Don’t forget to make a backup of your translation, because if you upgrade the plugin your file will be lost
• @user17078 plugin suggestion is quite nice, but I never used it much

Method 2

You can try this codestyling-localization plugin:. You can translate you plugins and themes using this.

Method 3

(Here is an EXAMPLE of translation to DEUTSCH. CHANGE the customs to YOUR DESIRED ones.)

in every plugins head, there is an unique name.
(for example:

/*
Plugin Name: my-pluginname
.......
*/

then, in that plugin’s folder, create a folder “languages”;

then, into your plugin .php file (somewhere in the top), insert the initialization code:

class load_language 
{
    public function __construct()
    {
    add_action('init', array($this, 'load_my_transl'));
    }

     public function load_my_transl()
    {
        load_plugin_textdomain('my-pluginname', FALSE, dirname(plugin_basename(__FILE__)).'/languages/');
    }
}

$zzzz = new load_language;

then open any text editor, then insert like this code (NOTE, THAT we are only adding two sample messages, “hello” and “bye”, so , you can ADD AS MANY messages AS YOU WANT with the similar lines).

# English translations for PACKAGE package.
# Copyright (C) 2012 THE PACKAGE'S COPYRIGHT HOLDER
# This file is distributed under the same license as the PACKAGE package.
# Automatically generated, 2012.
#
msgid ""
msgstr ""
"Project-Id-Version: my-pluginname 1.0n"
"Report-Msgid-Bugs-To: n"
"POT-Creation-Date: 2012-08-06 13:46-0400n"
"PO-Revision-Date: 2013-03-21 11:20+0400n"
"Last-Translator: Automatically generatedn"
"Language-Team: nonen"
"MIME-Version: 1.0n"
"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8n"
"X-Poedit-SourceCharset: iso-8859-1n"
"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bitn"
"Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=(n != 1);n"
"X-Generator: Poedit 1.5.4n"


#: mypluginindex.php:87 (it is just a line of a note, to remind where our code appears)
msgid "mymessage1"
msgstr "Hello"

#: mypluginindex.php:88
msgid "mymessage2"
msgstr "Bye"

then save this file as “my-pluginname-en_US.po” (note, that .po is an extension of file, so check that your text editor program has not saved to “my-pluginname-en_US.po.TXT”).

then download POEDIT software, and open this file. then edit the “translation” field, and then save as “my-pluginname-de_DE”
there will be generated two files ( If poEdit does not generate the second .mo file automatically, just go to File -> Preferences -> Editor and check the box that says “Automatically compile .mo file on save”),

then put those two file into “languages” folder.

after this, open wp-config.php and find this code:

define ('WPLANG, '');

and change to

define ('WPLANG, 'de_DE');

That’s all.
When WordPress is loaded, it will read your plugins language file, with prefix -de_DE.

So, in the plugin’s .php file, instead of:

echo "Something string";

you should use:

echo __("mymessage1", 'my-pluginname');

Finished. Now you should test your plugin.

p.s. used links:

• codex.wordpress.org/I18n_for_WordPress_Developers
• codex.wordpress.org/Translating_WordPress
• codex.wordpress.org/Writing_a_Plugin
• codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress_in_Your_Language

Method 4

You will want to use POEdit. It’s a free application for creating .po/.mo files.

I wrote a pretty in-depth tutorial on the entire topic here. You can skip to Step 3 – Create the Translation File For Text Domain.

Method 5

I suggest also http://poeditor.com/. It is a web-based translation tool that works great with .po, .mo, .pot and other types of files.

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0