Utilities typo.php - is a crude syntax checker to avoid checking in files with simple typos. It basically just loads each of our project files at once. Run from cmdline and see if any parsing errors are reported. Internationalisation extract.php - extracts translatable strings from our project files. It currently doesn't pick up strings in other libraries we might be using such as tinymce, simplepie, and the HTML parsers. In order for extract to do its job, every use of the t() translation function must be preceded by one space. The string also can not contain parentheses. If parens are required in a string which requires translation, please use hex escapes. \x28 = ( \x29 = ) This only applies to English. Other languages may use parens in strings because they don't require extraction. strings.php - a recent run of the strings program. This provides output that is suitable for direct inclusion in the program. There are also translatable strings in the various files in the view/en directory. By setting $lang = 'something' in .htconfig.php, the application will search for view/something/filename prior to the English version in view/en/filename when loading templates and view files. The translated string table should be placed in view/$lang/strings.php for automatic inclusion. You are not restricted to using known languages. You may also use this to translate the software into "pirate", "surfer" or merely to replace certain text which you don't care for. Note: The view/en directory contains many HTML template files, some of which only have a few words of English text amongst the HTML. Over time we will move the translation to the replace_macros() function which calls these files and then relocate the files to the view directory. The files in the top-level view directory are template files which do not require translation. Placeholders Do not translate placeholders in strings! Things like %s, %d, %1$s and $somename are used to add dynamic content to the string. %s represents a dynamic string, like in "Welcome to %s" %d represents a dynamic number, like in "%d new messages" $somename is a variable like in php In %1$s %2$s, the numbers are the position index of multiple dynamic content. You could swap position in string of indexed placeholders. e.g. "%1$s's %2$s" => "John's photo", "John's item" "%2$s di %1$s" => "foto di John", "elemento di John" Plural The tt() function supports plural form. Script extract.php write this in strings.php as an array, one string for every plural form language supports: $a->string["%d message sent"] = Array( 0 => "%d message sent", 1 => "%d messages sent", ); The function string_plural_select($n) defined in strings.php, return the string index to use, related to the numbers of item (value of $n). This is modelled after ngettext function of GNU gettext. More info at http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/gettext/Plural-forms.html Xgettext and .po workflow 1. Run util/run_xgettext.sh script (on *unix sistems, with GNU xgettext installed) This script runs xgettext on source tree, extracting strings from t() and tt() functions, and creates a util/messages.po file. % cd util; ./run_xgettext.sh ../view/{language}/messages.po Replace {language} with the language you are working on - e.g. 'es', 'fr', 'de', etc. 2. copy util/messages.po to view//messages.po 3. open view//messages.po with a text editor and fill in infos in "Last-Translator: FULL NAME " "Language-Team: LANGUAGE \n" "Language: \n" (eg: "Last-Translator: Guybrush Threepwood " "Language-Team: Pirate Friendika \n" "Language: pi\n" ) For the line "Plural-Forms: nplurals=INTEGER; plural=EXPRESSION;\n" read GNU gettext manual at http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/gettext/Plural-forms.html 4. You could then translate the strings in text editor, but I suggest to use one of the many .po editors out there, like QtLinguist 5. run $ php util/po2php.php view//messages.po to create the strings.php file When strings are added or modified in source, you could run $ cd util; ./run_xgettext.sh ../view//messages.po to extract strings from source files and join them with the existing .po file: new strings are added, the existing are not overwritten. If you already translated Friendika using strings.php, you could import your old translation to messages.po. Run: $ php util/php2po.php view//strings.php You may also use the util/string_translator.php web interface to translate the string file, but it is disabled for website security reasons. The web server will need write permission to your language directories and the "Deny ..." line in util/.htaccess will need to be modified or commented to use the utility.