Dolphin Languages

​New language creation

New language creation

This manual is for Dolphin 7.0.x.
The manual for Dolphin 6 is available ​here

Translating newly installed Dolphin sites

To translate Dolphin's language file you need to:

1. Install the latest Dolphin

2. Uninstall all available modules from Dolphin Admin Panel -> Tools -> Modules

3. Go to the Dolphin administration panel -> Settings -> Languages Settings. In the 'Language Files' block you need to export the necessary language file by clicking the 'Export' link.

4. The downloaded file will have the following structure

   	<?php
   	$aLangInfo=array (
   	  'Name' => 'en',
   	  'Flag' => 'gb',
   	  'Title' => 'English',
   	);
   	$aLangContent=array (
   	  '_add' => 'add',
   	  '_bottom_text' => '2002-{0}. Product of <a class="bottom_text" href="http://www.boonex.com/">BoonEx Group</a>.',
   	  '_copyright' => 'Copyright &copy; {0} Your Company.',
   	  'test_key' => 'Key\'s string',
   	  ...
   	);
   	?>
   
   

   • You need to change the 'Name', 'Flag' and 'Title' in accordance with the language you are translating to. Note. You need to use International Language Codes for 'Name' and 'Flag'. You may read more about this using the following link ​http://www.boonex.com/unity/txt/extension_requirements#LanguageFiles7

• If you use the (') sign in the language string you need to escape it by replacing it with (\'). Take a look at the example above -> 'test_key' language key.

• It is necessary that you open and save this file in UTF-8 format. Otherwise non-latin symbols will not be correctly displayed.

• It exports only the system language file, but not modules language files, which are translated a bit differently.

5. Translate the language file in each module located in modules/boonex/*/install/langs/en.php. The Forum has 2 language files - first in the regular location and another one in the modules\boonex\forum\integrations\base\langs\en.php. Use the same language code for translated files like in the 'Name' field in the system language file.

6. Put all translated files in a folder with all modules structure and exported system language in the root of the folder. The name of the folder must be named with the vendor name, language name and version of the translation. So it may look like this:

Org-Russian-v.1.3
  modules
    boonex
      ads
        install
          langs
            ru.php
      articles
        install
          langs
            ru.php

      ...

      forum
        install
          langs
            ru.php
        integrations
          base
            langs
              ru.php
   
      ...

      wall
        install
          langs
            ru.php


  lang-ru.php
  readme.txt

Don't forget to put a readme.txt file into the archive with language file info, compatibility with Dolphin and installation instructions. Pack the resulting folder in a zip archive.

---

Installation instructions

1. Unpack the zip archive

2. Go to the Dolphin admin panel -> Settings -> Languages Settings, and in the 'Create New' block switch tabs to 'Import'. Browse for your system language file (in the root of this folder, like lang-ru.php) and click 'Import'. If everything is OK, you should see the new language in the 'Language Files' block.

3. Copy the whole modules directory from the folder you created it in (in our example it's the folder Org-Russian-v.1.3) to your dolphin root directory - it will create the language file in each module.

4. Go to the Dolphin admin panel -> Tools -> Modules, and scroll down to the Installed Modules block. Select all modules and click the Recompile Language(s) button.

5. Go to the Modules -> Orca Forum, click [L[Compile Lang:]]ru link to compile new language file specifically for orca forum.

Translating sites with existing members and content

If you want to translate a site which already has registered members who added some content, it will be dangerous for your site to un-install modules to translate them.

In this case, you should act a little bit differently.

NOTE: Only the default language keys will get translated. If you added any language keys after installation, you will get them un-translated.

1. Extract the default language file from the original ​Dolphin package.

The file's location in the archive is install/langs/lang-en.php.

Translate this file in a UTF-8 format. This ​program will be very useful for you to edit your files created in many encodings and convert them to UTF-8 (Encoding -> Convert to UTF-8 without BOM).

2. The steps 4-6 of the previous [Translating newly installed Dolphin sites] instructions should be repeated right in the way they were written above.