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+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html><head>
+ <title>Moodle translation guide</title>
+ <link rel="stylesheet" href="docstyles.css" type="TEXT/CSS">
+ <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+</head>
+
+<body style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
+
+<h1>Moodle translation guide</h1>
+
+<p>Translating Moodle is not that difficult, but a few things are good to know before you start.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<h2>Structure of a Moodle language pack</h2>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 40px;">All Moodle language packs are located in
+the lang directory, with each language in a unique directory named the
+same as the language short name (en, fr, nl, es ...). </p>
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 40px;">All the main files are in this
+folder, with .php extensions (eg moodle.php, resource.php etc).
+These files contains short phrases, often called "<span style="font-style: italic;">strings</span>".
+</p>
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 40px;">There might also be some folders containing .html web pages:
+</p>
+
+
+<ul style="margin-left: 40px;">
+
+
+<li><strong>help</strong>: containing the context-sensitive help files that pop-up when you click the help icons throughout Moodle
+</li><li><strong>docs</strong>: containing the basic documentation pages (such as this one!)<br>
+</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<p> </p>
+
+
+
+<h2>Creating a completely new language pack</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 40px;">If your language is not yet supported by
+Moodle, or if you just want to make some customisations to your own
+site's interface, you may want to start a new translation. </p>
+
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 40px;">All you need to do is create a new folder
+in the lang directory using the 2-letter code for your language. You
+can find these standard codes in lib/languages.php. If you are making a
+local variation of another language use the code of that language with
+an underscore and a meaningful two letter extension (e.g. <span style="font-style: italic;">pt </span>for Portuguese and <span style="font-style: italic;">pt_br</span> for Brasilian variation of the Portuguese language pack). If you are making a Unicode version add <span style="font-weight: bold;">_utf8</span> at the end (eg <span style="font-style: italic;">sr_utf8</span>).<br>
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 40px;">Next, copy the moodle.php from another
+language into your new directory. The one from the "en" folder is
+usually best but it doesn't really matter as you are going to rewrite
+it anyway.<br>
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 40px;">You are now ready to start inserting new strings by editing your language... see below for details on this.</p>
+
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 40px;">For a new language pack, the very first
+thing you need to edit is the string named "thischarset" in moodle.php.
+It must contain a valid web character set for your language. After you
+change that string, save the moodle.php file, then <span style="font-weight: bold;">reload the page</span>. You can then continue with the rest of the strings. </p>
+
+
+
+<p> </p>
+
+
+
+<h2>Editing an existing language pack</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 style="margin-left: 40px;">Making small customisations<br>
+</h3>
+
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 80px;">If you just want to change a few things in the interface to suit your own site better, <span style="font-weight: bold;">don't start editing one of the standard language packs</span>. If you do then your changes will be overwritten next time you upgrade to a new Moodle.<br>
+</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 80px;">Instead, use the instructions above for
+making a brand new language pack, and set the parent language (in
+moodle.php) to be the language that is most similar to yours. For
+example, a good name for a local english version would be "<span style="font-style: italic;">en_local</span>", and the parent language would be "<span style="font-style: italic;">en</span>" or "<span style="font-style: italic;">en_us</span>".</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 80px;">Note that for everyone on your site to
+see this new pack you have to select it as the site language and
+restrict the available languages on <span style="font-weight: bold;">Admin >> Configuration >> Variables</span>.<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 style="margin-left: 40px;">Translating the Moodle interface language files (the "string" files)<br>
+</h3>
+
+
+
+
+<ol>
+
+
+
+ <ol>
+ <li>Log on to your Moodle server as an administrator. </li>
+ <li>Go to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Administration >> Configuration >> Language</span>, which is the language administration page. </li>
+ <li>On this page you can choose your language from the menu, then choose "Compare and Edit Language".</li>
+ <li>You should see forms you can edit for each file. If you do not,
+then you may have to make sure that the files are writeable - you may
+have to change file permissions.</li>
+ <li>The forms consist of three columns, the first is the name of
+each string, the second is that string in English, and the last is
+translation in the current language. </li>
+ <li>Edit missing strings in each files (highlighted in colour),
+remembering to hit the "Save changes" button at the end of each form.</li>
+ <li>It's OK to leave strings empty - Moodle will simply use the
+parent language for that string instead. You can define the parent
+language in moodle.php, otherwise English is always used by default. </li>
+ <li>A quick way to see all the missing strings is by using the button to "Check for missing strings".<br>
+ <br>
+ </li>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ </ol>
+</ol>
+
+
+<h3 style="margin-left: 40px;">Translating the help and documentation files</h3>
+
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 80px;">There's no built-in editor in Moodle yet to translate
+the help files, but it's really not that difficult. It is important to
+use the <span style="font-weight: bold;">en</span> language pack as a reference language. Copy a help file from
+the en language pack and paste it on the same location in your own
+language pack. Then use a plain text editor to translate the file,
+making sure not to modify any code in the file (there usually is no
+code, just HTML-tags). (DON'T USE A WORDPROCESSOR to write the
+help-files because these programs add too much rubbish to the files).</p>
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 80px;">Clicking on "Check for missing strings"
+in the language administration screen will also show you what files you
+are missing. If you have missing files then Moodle will use the parent
+language instead, so there is no need to leave copies of <strong>untranslated</strong> help files in your language pack.</p>
+
+
+<p> </p>
+
+
+<h2>Submitting your language pack to the Moodle project </h2>
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 40px;">Sharing your translation with Moodle will
+ensure that you help other people who speak your language.
+Your interface language will be available in future versions of Moodle.<br>
+</p>
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 40px;">Simply archive your whole new language directory as a <span style="font-weight: bold;">zip</span> file and email it to translation@moodle.org.<br>
+</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 40px;">We will get back to you with further details.<br>
+</p>
+
+
+<p> </p>
+
+
+<h2>Maintenance of a standard language pack<br>
+</h2>
+
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 40px;">If you are committed to maintaining a language in Moodle, it's best to use <a href="?file=cvs.html">Moodle CVS</a> so that you have an up-to-date version of Moodle, and can easily "check in" your changes directly into the Moodle project.<br>
+</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 40px;">To keep in touch with changes in the project it is a very good idea to subscribe to the <a href="http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=30935" target="_top">CVS mailing list</a>. This helps to keep your
+translation as close to the English text as possible.<br>
+</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 40px;"><br>
+</p>
+
+
+
+</body></html>
projects / moodle.git / commitdiff