Adding translations

For many developers adding translations is the first step in becoming an open source contributor. Apart from that, it also adds value to the project, so we are explaining the steps here, to make the work for translators as easy as possible.

Understanding the translation process

First of all it is important to actually understand the translation process of Sulu.

Every bundle requiring translations stores them in their Resources/translations/sulu folder using the xliff format. These files are named using the scheme backend.[language].xlf and look something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xliff xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:1.2" version="1.2">
    <file source-language="en" datatype="plaintext" original="file.ext">
        <body>
            <trans-unit id="a50af522ac181350142c0b4720e29a3f" resname="translation.code">
                <source>translation.code</source>
                <target>Some translation</target>
            </trans-unit>
        </body>
    </file>
</xliff>

If the SuluTranslateBundle is registered in the Kernel, there is the command sulu:translate:export available, which exports the translations from all bundles into a single JSON file located in web/admin/translations. From there the Sulu-Admin loads the translations for the required localization.

Add a new translation

The following guide explains how to add a complete new translation for the Sulu-Admin.

These steps have to be executed for every single bundle:

  1. Copy the file Resources/translations/sulu/backend.en.xlf (or any other language you might be more comfortable with) into Resources/translations/sulu/backend.[language].xlf (replace [language] with the two-letter ISO code of the new language).

  2. Replace the translations in all target xml tags with the translation for the new language.

Afterwards the next steps have to be executed once for introducing the language in the standard edition of Sulu:

  1. Add the language in the file app/config/sulu.yml to sulu_core.locales, with the 2-letter code as the key, and the name of the new language (in this language) as the value.

  2. Add the 2-letter code to the array sulu_core.translations

  3. Build the new language using app/console sulu:translate:export [language]. If you updated multiple languages at once, you can leave off the language part.

Afterwards commit all the changes and create Pull Requests as described in Creating a Pull Request.