Joomla: Localization

You may have seen so many web sites which can me viewed in several languages. You may also think that it is so difficult to create such a site. But doing such a thing is not much difficult.

Presenting your Joomla web site in 3 languages is not a much difficult thing. Joomla can be used with several languages. I used as Trilingual in the title because in Sri Lanka we mainly use 3 languages.

So, we are going to use the popular JoomFish component for this. This is a great component which can be used very easily for localization.

(For writing this article I’m using a Joomla site installed in a folder called jom in localhost)

Let’s first install this component to our Joomla site.

http://www.joomfish.net/downloads

Download the latest stable version here.

Now  in the Joomla Backend (http://localhost/jomdemo/administrator/) go to Extensions>> Install/Uninstal.

Now press Browse button and select the downloaded file. After that press upload file and install. Now JoomFish will be installed.

Now in the Backend menu you’ll see the name JoomFish under components’

Also in the Frontend you’ll see the flag of UK near the search box( If you are using the default template)’

Flag

Now we need to download the language packs. Find them here : http://community.joomla.org/translations.html

Sinhala:

http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/jtranslation/frs/?action=FrsReleaseBrowse&frs_package_id=3494

Install 3 packages
 si-LK.installation.zip,
 si-LK_joomla_lang_admin.1.5.15v1.zip,
 si-LK_joomla_lang_site.1.5.15v1.zip similar to the above described way.

Tamil:

http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/jtranslation/frs/?action=FrsReleaseBrowse&frs_package_id=3455

Install the 2 packages ta-LK_joomla_lang_site.1.5.15.zip, ta-LK_joomla_lang_admin.1.5.15.zip found in the above url.

Now language installation has been completed.

Components >> JoomFish >> Language Configuration (http://localhost/jom/administrator/index.php?option=com_joomfish&task=languages.show ) and check the checkboxe for Sinhala under Active, and press Save.

Go to Components >> JoomFish >> Language Configuration (http://localhost/jom/administrator/index.php?option=com_joomfish&task=languages.show ) and check the checkboxes for Sinhala and Tamil under Active, and press Save.

Now in the Frontend you’ll see “Sinhala (Sri Lanka)Tamil” with that above stated flag of UK. We can change the site’s language by clicking on these.

If you want to show 2 images instead of “Sinhala (Sri Lanka)Tamil”, create two images called si.gif and ta.gif , and place them in the components/com_joomfish/images/flags/ folder inside the folder where we installed Joomla.

Examine the changes in the frontend when we are changing the languages’

You won’t see any changes in Articles and Menu Items. We need to translate them manually.

Translation

For this goto Components >>JomFish >> Translation.

In the right side give the language we are going to translate for the listbox “Language”. Let’s select Sinhala’

In the other ListBox (Content elements:) select Menus. You’ll then see a list of available menu items.

Click on the link for the menu item “Home”. So you’ll get a page for translation. There under Name you’ll see a box called Translation.Then check the Published checkbox in the right side and press save.

Now go to the frontend and check the main menu.

Now similar to the picture above, you’ll see what has happened.

Now I’m going to Translate the article “Joomla! Community Portal” into Sinhala.

In the similar way described above select Contents in the Content elements: ListBox. Then in the next view click on Joomla! Community Portal article and Translate in the same way described above.

See below:

See it is translated.

Translated the other things in the same way. Good Luck!

(You can find extensions to get the site automatically translated into several languages using Google Translate here : http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/languages/automatic-translations)