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Code Howto: Add translatable text elements to the User Interface

 Warning
All information for end users to be able to translate should be in a workspace on tiki.org

What's the problem?

Because Tiki is available in 25+ languages, whenever you add a textual element to the User Interface (UI), you need to do this in a way that will support its translation.

Creating a translatable string in a Smarty file

The easiest way to add textual elements to the Tiki UI is of course to modify a Smarty Template File (i.e. a file whose extension is .tpl)). In that case, you can make the string translatable by enclosing it in {tr}{/tr} Smarty block.

For example, if you type this in the .tpl file:

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{tr}Hello world{/tr}


Then it will be displayed as "Hello world" for English users, but it will be displayed as "Bonjour le monde" for French speakers (assuming that this translation has been created... more on this later).

Warning: Do not use single quotes around a textual element!

Often, the textual element you are adding is part of some HTML or Java script attribute. For example, you might use text in the ALT tag of an icon as follows:

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alt="{tr}Click on icon to start monitoring this page{/tr}"


When you do this, it's important that you use double quotes "" instead of single quotes '' to enclose the translated text. The reason is that in many languages, the apostrophe is the same as the single quote. So if one of the translations includes an apostrophe, it will be taken to be the closing quote for the ALT tag.

Creating a translatable string in a PHP file

Sometimes, UI textual elements must be created in a PHP file (i.e., a file that ends with .php) and then passed on to a .tpl (through a $smarty->assign() call) that will then display it.

In that situation, you must invoke the tra() (or tr()) function on the textual element, before passing it to $smarty->assign().

Placeholders

In many cases, a string will contain variables that need to be included, like a number or a name. Tiki provides a placeholder mechanism to help with this. As much as possible, try to write sentences in a gender/number neutral manner to make translation possible.

Never use multiple translation segments to introduce a variable. Translators won't be able to translate correctly.

Placeholders from PHP
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$text = tr('There are %0 post(s) in this forum. The last one was by %1', $count, $lastAuthor);

Placeholders from Smarty
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{tr _0=$count _1=$lastAuthor}There are %0 post(s) in this forum. The last one was by %1{/tr}

Keywords

The following is a list of keywords that should serve as hubs for navigation within the Tiki development and should correspond to documentation keywords.

Each feature in Tiki has a wiki page which regroups all the bugs, requests for enhancements, etc. It is somewhat a form of wiki-based project management. You can also express your interest in a feature by adding it to your profile. You can also try out the Dynamic filter.

Accessibility (WAI & 508)
Accounting
Administration
Ajax
Articles & Submissions
Backlinks
Banner
Batch
BigBlueButton audio/video/chat/screensharing
Blog
Bookmark
Browser Compatibility
Calendar
Category
Chat
Comment
Communication Center
Consistency
Contacts Address book
Contact us
Content template
Contribution
Cookie
Copyright
Credits
Custom Home (and Group Home Page)
Database MySQL - MyISAM
Database MySQL - InnoDB
Date and Time
Debugger Console
Diagram
Directory (of hyperlinks)
Documentation link from Tiki to doc.tiki.org (Help System)
Docs
DogFood
Draw -superseded by Diagram
Dynamic Content
Preferences
Dynamic Variable
External Authentication
FAQ
Featured links
Feeds (RSS)
File Gallery
Forum
Friendship Network (Community)
Gantt
Group
Groupmail
Help
History
Hotword
HTML Page
i18n (Multilingual, l10n, Babelfish)
Image Gallery
Import-Export
Install
Integrator
Interoperability
Inter-User Messages
InterTiki
jQuery
Kaltura video management
Kanban
Karma
Live Support
Logs (system & action)
Lost edit protection
Mail-in
Map
Menu
Meta Tag
Missing features
Visual Mapping
Mobile
Mods
Modules
MultiTiki
MyTiki
Newsletter
Notepad
OS independence (Non-Linux, Windows/IIS, Mac, BSD)
Organic Groups (Self-managed Teams)
Packages
Payment
PDF
Performance Speed / Load / Compression / Cache
Permission
Poll
Profiles
Quiz
Rating
Realname
Report
Revision Approval
Scheduler
Score
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search
Security
Semantic links
Share
Shopping Cart
Shoutbox
Site Identity
Slideshow
Smarty Template
Social Networking
Spam protection (Anti-bot CATPCHA)
Spellcheck
Spreadsheet
Staging and Approval
Stats
Survey
Syntax Highlighter (Codemirror)
Tablesorter
Tags
Task
Tell a Friend
Terms and Conditions
Theme
TikiTests
Federated Timesheets
Token Access
Toolbar (Quicktags)
Tours
Trackers
TRIM
User Administration
User Files
User Menu
Watch
Webmail and Groupmail
WebServices
Wiki History, page rename, etc
Wiki plugins extends basic syntax
Wiki syntax text area, parser, etc
Wiki structure (book and table of content)
Workspace and perspectives
WYSIWTSN
WYSIWYCA
WYSIWYG
XMLRPC
XMPP




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