As it is just a question of changing language names and locale to be valid for all languages, I post it here as a sticky for all.
Any question, please start a new thread with your language name.
Note concerning font usage:
Change all the site CSS in template_css.css to use Arial as first choice when a font is defined. // for Amharic, maybe different for your language
ARIAL contains the ge'ez glyphs
1. Joomla 1.0.13 +font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
Create an Amharic language pack lets your users get front-end strings in Amharic.
Copy english.php change name to amharic.php // for Amharic, maybe different for your language
Copy english.ignore.php change name to amharic.ignore.php // for Amharic, maybe different for your language
Copy english.xml change name to amharic.xml // for Amharic, maybe different for your language
A. Edit php files, use Amharic keyboard with utf 8 aware editor (Babelpad on Windows, BBEdit on Macintosh) // for Amharic, maybe different for your language
Change strings:
example (parts in red have to be translated):
// Site page note found
define( '_404', 'We\'re sorry but the page you requested could not be found.' );
define( '_404_RTS', 'Return to site' );
[etc.]
// common
DEFINE('_LANGUAGE','en'); // change here to am
[etc.]
/** templates/*.php */
DEFINE('_ISO','charset=iso-8859-1');// change here to UTF-8 // for Amharic, maybe different for your language
[etc.]
Save the files as UTF8 NO BOM encoding. // for Amharic, maybe different for your language
[Back-slashes have to be added before apostrophes as an escape]
[The amharic.ignore.php contains terms which will be ignored by search]
B. Edit amharic.xml
from
to
Save with the iso-8559-1 encoding.
Amharic // for Amharic, maybe different for your language
1.0.0
2004-09-20
Joomla! Project
[email protected]
amharic.php // for Amharic, maybe different for your language
amharic.ignore.php // for Amharic, maybe different for your language
Zip the 3 files together. The package is ready.
Refer to post above to create a UTF8 site, as well as here: http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,174443.0.html
Use your Amharic keyboard to change in back-end menus, titles, contents to Amharic.DEFINE('_ISO','charset=iso-8859-1');// change here to UTF-8
has to be changed for the english.php file
2. Joomla 1.5
1. 5 is full utf8
Same solution for the fonts used in CSS.
One is NOT forced to use Amharic language files and still may enter Amharic strings in Articles, etc..
Amharic language packs lets users switch on the fly languages in admin and site. Interface and common strings.
This is not an automatic translation of the articles themselves or of the titles, menus, etc. of the data, but all interface.
Language files are separate .ini files in 3 groups:
Installation
Site
Admin
The easiest solution here is to install last nightly build
http://dev.joomla.org/content/view/17/60/#nightly
and when sure it is working OK, install this component
http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla_1_5_tr1/frs/
It is then easy to create a new Amharic package (takes time to translate though and it is suggested to do that as a group)
Name of package should be:
am-ET // for Amharic, maybe different for your language
Locale should be:
am_ET.utf8, am_ET.UTF-8, am_ET, amh_ET, am, amh, amharic, ethiopic // for Amharic, maybe different for your language
If, for any reason, some ini or xml language files are edited manually with a text editor, they have to be saved with the encoding UTF8 NO BOM.
We would be glad to add to the new Joomla 1.5 the xx-XX language packs.
In case you volunteer, start a new thread.