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understanding difference between changing language of theme vs. dashboard

Please help me understand this:

1. I have been able to install the Spanish back end version for WP.

2. I would like to be able to also change the language of this theme into Spanish (the front end)

3. There is one instruction that is confusing: instructions say that the language code in the wp-config.php should be changed. I have already done this to change the WP language to Spanish in #1. How do I change the language of the translated theme in #2? These two things seem to be the same process. But how do I change the theme?

4. When translating a theme i see that a few themes say they are translation ready and offer a .pot file. The theme I am interested does not have a .pot file but has a en_EN.po and en_EN.mo files. Which one do I need to translate in order to translate the theme into Spanish?

Thanks for your help

Alex

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 2:57:27
  • Philip John
    • DEV MAN’s Apprentice

    Hiya Alex,

    Okay, first off, when you change the WP_LANG setting in wp-config.php that tell WordPress that you want everything in Spanish.

    Once you change that, WP will display the Spanish translation of WordPress itself, plugins and themes. There is no similar WP_LANG setting for each plugin and theme.

    If WordPress doesn’t find a Spanish translation for a plugin or theme, it will just use the default (usually English).

    You can simply open up either the .pot or .po file in an editor like PoEdit and then you can save as es_ES.mo to generate your Spanish translation for that plugin or theme.

    Hope that helps!

    Phil

  • alexandegn
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    Phil:

    Thanks for making it very clear now. I will now proceed to translate the .mo files of the themes and plug ins I want in Spanish. Do you know, in order to save time, if other members have already translated plug ins or themes? It would be great to have a repository on your site perhaps.

    In another thread you also recommended to make a child theme. So should I make a child theme for the translated themes? Or is the child better if I want to make changes to the CSS file?

    Thanks once again

  • Philip John
    • DEV MAN’s Apprentice

    Yep, it’d be good to have somewhere for you to share translations and is something we’ve talked about internally. I’d encourage you to add your thoughts on that here: https://wpmudev.com/forums/topic/sharing-language-pack

    There is a Spanish translation for MarketPress already: https://wpmudev.com/forums/topic/spanish-translation-of-marketpress#post-111170

    There are also many translations in Turkish from Mustafa: https://wpmudev.com/forums/profile/m_uysl

    You don’t need a child theme to add translations, no.

    Thanks,

    Phil