Installing languages and components

[Alfred]

When experimenting with a component of mine I have translated I found out that the langages of the component only get installed when the corresponding base language is installed in joomla also....

This seems strange to me, if I have a component that supports Dutch, but haven't installed Dutch yet in my base Joomla it won't install the dutch ini file for the component..
So if I install the Dutch languages at a later date I have to re-install the component to also get the dutch support for it.

In another case, lets assume I want to update a language file, I delete the old Dutch files, which means the whole dutch sub-dir gets deleted from the Language folder, then when I install the new dutch version I also have to re-install the component because the ini of the component is also gone.

Can someone confirm this is what happens and is that suppose to be happening ? 

[infograf768]

There has been a long discussion on this about the error/warning message to display when installing an extension containing an ini file for a language not already present in the 1.5.x installed.

Yes, it is supposed to work this way as the language installer —when installing a full pack— would not accept to install a language if the xx-XX folder is already present.

In the FAQs we are going to create about this issue, we may suggest users to keep trace of the warnings when installing an extension and upload later on, when necessary, the single ini file for the new language installed.
I agree this is not a clean solution, just a workaround.

I am not sure this can be changed in the 1.5.x series.
Any idea of a way to handle this in 1.6 is welcome.

[Alfred]

OK, thanks for confirming this one.

I assume that keeping the language files in a central place had several advantages over keeping the language files with the respective components ?

[infograf768]

Yes indeed, as the Translation Manager checks in a central place for ALL ini files, thus permitting any user to easily customize a basic en-GB one to the local language desired.

[ewel]

Coming across this post by chance, my idea for 1.5.x would be for the system to at least keep a list of rejected language files, or of extensions during the installation of which language files were rejected. In that way, when someone wants to add a language it is possible to quickly look up for which extensions one can look the laguage files up in the installation zip. I am assuming it would be possible to upload ini files into the language directory or is further action required to make a language file work?

[infograf768]

Coming across this post by chance, my idea for 1.5.x would be for the system to at least keep a list of rejected language files, or of extensions during the installation of which language files were rejected. In that way, when someone wants to add a language it is possible to quickly look up for which extensions one can look the laguage files up in the installation zip. I am assuming it would be possible to upload ini files into the language directory or is further action required to make a language file work?

This would be ideal. I am afraid it is out of the question for 1.5.x.
Will ask for 1.6