Tag: l10n

This post is part of the sub-series on Translating a ClassicPress plugin which is part of the Translating a ClassicPress plugin series.

ClassicPress is already used in many different countries where English is not the main language; and even where it is, there can be variations in the spelling of words. ClassicPress itself is internationalized and can be localized.

Plugins and themes developed for ClassicPress should also be internationalized so that they can then be localized. The developer who authors the plugin doesn’t have to do the localization (translations), but by internationalizing the plugin it means that others can easily translate the plugin without needing to modify any code.

By making translations easy to do, you increase the audience for your plugin as site admins can easily translate it into their sites language.

This post is part of the sub-series on Translating a ClassicPress plugin which is part of the Translating a ClassicPress plugin series.

Internationalization (often abbreviated as i18n as there are 18 letters between the letters i and n) is the process of developing a plugin so it can easily be translated into other languages.

Localization (often abbreviated as l10n as there are 10 letters between the letters l and n) is the process of translating an internationalized plugin.

If you are a theme or plugin author, you should regard internationalization (i18n) and localization (l10n) as a requirement for your ClassicPress projects.

I started using WordPress when I launched this blog back in 2011 and a couple of years later started writing plugins to add missing functionality. At the end of last year I switched over to ClassicPress, a hard-fork of WordPress.

As part of my transition to ClassicPress I created new versions of my plugins which added new functionality and improved security. I had already done some work to internationalize my plugins, but took the opportunity to improve this aspect as well.

Having done so, I thought that a series on how to internationalize and localize plugins might be a useful thing to write; while the series is targeted at plugins, as I am a plugin author, the principles are the same for themes.

This series will include a couple of sub-series as well as the core series; the index for all are below and will automatically grow as the posts go live.

Continue reading “Translating a ClassicPress plugin: Series Index”