WPML 1.7.3 – Language Editing and Translation for Admin Texts

WPML 1.7.3 includes two major features, which were always high on the wish-list. You can edit languages and translate texts from the theme admin.

Language editing

WPML ships with a list of many popular languages, but sometimes it’s not enough. For instance, a recent red-cross site needed to add Creole (the language spoken in Haiti). Others, want to have both US, UK and Australian English variants.

So, without further ado, head over to WPML->Languages. There, you will find a new link Edit languages.

Language editing screen

You can existing languages and add new languages. No more need to manually edit WPML’s table for your own languages.

In case you didn’t notice, there’s a little Reset languages button there as well. Up to this release, WPML always automatically reset the languages on every upgrade. Now, since you can edit languages, it might not be such a good idea to do. WPML no longer changes your language tables. If you want to revert to the preset values, use that button.

Translation for texts in the theme’s admin

Many themes let you enter your own texts in their admin screen. For example, let’s look at the settings for Arras theme:

Arras theme settings

As you can see, there are some texts that which should be translated. Let’s see how!

Go to WPML->String translation and scroll to the bottom of the page. There, click on Translate texts in admin screens.

Choose admin-texts for translation

This screen lets me choose which admin-options need to be translated. You’ll see everything that the theme saves. Many of the fields don’t need to be translated, but some do.

I’ve selected the feed_url, comments_feed_url, footer_title and footer_message. This means that I’ll be able to enter translations for these entries.

Next, click on the link to go to the String translation page. WPML already selects just the theme-admin texts. You can translate them and they would appear on site when viewing in different languages.

Entering translation for Arras home title

In a perfect world…

We tried to make this mechanism as robust as possible, but some limitations remain. WPML cannot translate texts that are registered dynamically in themes. It happens in many premium themes.

We’ll try to improve this in future releases and work with theme developers to allow WPML to know which texts can be translated.

Bugs fixed

And, we also managed to crush another few annoying bugs in this release.

The one bug that many have reported was a conflict between WPML’s new Auto adjust IDs and category translations. It’s fixed now and you can safely enable back the Auto ID adjustment feature without breaking category and tag links. Thanks to all the folks who reported it in the forum.

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