Translation in Mapbender3

Mapbender3 uses the translator service which is a Symfony component. You get more information at the Symfony Translation Documentation and Translator Class Documentation .

In the code you use the function trans to translate a text into another language.

Example how the function trans can be used in a Twig template:

{% block title %}{{ application.title | trans }}{% endblock %}

or

{% trans %}{{ application.title }}{% endtrans %}

Example for PHP:

echo $translator->trans('Hello World');

XLIFF-files for translations

The translations can be stored in different formats. We use XLIFF-format for Mapbender3. Symfony will take the XLIFF-loader to load and parse the file.

We use place holder for every text. Like this you can define different tranlsation for the same word which accurs in different modules.

We translate the place holder to different languages. English is the default language that we provide. It is also defined as the fallback language in the parameters.yml file. The fallback language wil be used if you define a language in parameters.yml that does not exist.

This is how a translation file messages.de.xliff for german translation could look like.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xliff xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:1.2" version="1.2">
 <file source-language="de" datatype="plaintext" original="file.ext">
   <body>
     <trans-unit id="20bbe30e6fcefd2ab10c780590b458af" resname="mb.core.admin.button.show_label">
       <source>mb.core.admin.button.show_label</source>
       <target>Beschriftung anzeigen</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="7cb565a35d95af70959282faf4989642" resname="mb.manager.admin.element.delete">
       <source>mb.manager.admin.element.delete</source>
       <target>Element entfernen</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="04cd08843fed089f29b6aa525b3380cf" resname="mb.manager.admin.element.delete.confirm">
       <source>mb.manager.admin.element.delete.confirm</source>
       <target>Wollen Sie ddas Element wirklich löschen?</target>
     </trans-unit>
     <trans-unit id="8f31981eb7f9c7b4331f1550f0e68b6c" resname="mb.manager.admin.element.btn.delete">
       <source>mb.manager.admin.element.btn.delete</source>
       <target>Löschen</target>
     </trans-unit>
     .....

Notice: Each time you create a new translation resource you have to clear your cache.

app/console cache:clear

How can you activate translation?

Activate your default locale in the configuration file app/config/parameters.yml

fallback_locale:   en
locale:            de

Check whether translations (xliff-files) for your language exist

  • mapbender/src/Mapbender/CoreBundle/Resources/translations/
  • mapbender/src/Mapbender/ManagerBundle/Resources/translations/
  • mapbender/src/Mapbender/PrintBundle/Resources/translations/
  • mapbender/src/Mapbender/WmcBundle/Resources/translations/
  • mapbender/src/Mapbender/WmsBundle/Resources/translations/
  • fom/src/FOM/CoreBundle/Resources/translations/
  • fom/src/FOM/ManagerBundle/Resources/translations/
  • fom/src/FOM/UserBundle/Resources/translations/
  • ...

Create xliff-files for your language

If your language is not translated yet, it is easy to add a new language.

  • Check the translation directories and create a new file by copying the english locale
  • translate the target-tags into the target-tags
  • format your translated file with app/console translation:update –output-format=xlf –force de MapbenderWmcBundle
  • clear your cache

Naming conventions and locations

Symfony looks for translation files in the following directories in the following order:

  • the <kernel root directory>/Resources/translations
  • the <kernel root directory>/Resources/<bundle name>/translations
  • Resources/translations/ directory of the bundle.

Bundle translations can overwrite translations of the other directories.

Naming

The naming convention is domain.locale.loader.

  • domain - we use the default domain messages
  • locale - locale that the translations is made for (e.g. de, de_DE);
  • loader - defines the loader to load and parse the file. Symfony offers XLIFF, PHP, YAML

Share your translations with the Mapbender3 community!

Supporting more and more language would be great for Mapbender3. The Mapbender project would be happy if you could share your translations with the community.

This is what you have to do:

  • send the new xliff-files for your language to the Mapbender developer (mapbender@osgeo.org) or create a patch at github