Bilingual Phpbb Forum
Do you need to setup a bilingual forum like that in this site?
follow instructions to make your Phpbb bilingual.
Phpbb supports internationalization and multiple languages, but unfortunately it is not possible to choose your preferred language from frontend. It is actually possible from adm panel or user profile only. But you need to register, agree the rules, login, etc. with default language only.
These instructions will help to change this.
As you can see the whole forum template is translated in 2 languages (english and italian). Switching between them is as easy as clicking on a flag image. Further, it can recognize your browser language and open the forum directly in that language.
follow instructions to make your Phpbb bilingual.
Phpbb supports internationalization and multiple languages, but unfortunately it is not possible to choose your preferred language from frontend. It is actually possible from adm panel or user profile only. But you need to register, agree the rules, login, etc. with default language only.
These instructions will help to change this.
As you can see the whole forum template is translated in 2 languages (english and italian). Switching between them is as easy as clicking on a flag image. Further, it can recognize your browser language and open the forum directly in that language.
Steps to follow:
1. Download and install your preferred laguage from Phpbb official language repository.
2. Download and install "quickly change your language" from here.- (installation is easy, but be sure to have access to mysql admin as it requires a table to be added)
3. Once installed you already can switch language from frontend: you need to type index.php?lang=en or index.php?lang=it or whateverer other language. Type it after the domain adress.
4. Within your template you can create an image flag directly linking to index.php?lang=yourlanguage.
5. Now you can see all forum translated but iconset images will remain untranslated. What you can do at this point is make your set of bilingual iconset images. Use Gimp or Photoshop to create them quickly. (isonsets can be found in styles/your_style/imageset/en for instance if english is set in adm panel as default language. You can directly edit these. Be sure to backup the original ones).
7. Now lets see how to edit templates elements as the flag image, top menu items, etc. the concept is quite simple: define a variable for each element. Define the translated value for each variable and for each language.
This is an example for a menu item (home):
a. define the variable 'home' and 'news': go to includes/functions.php, find:
and add after:
add all variables you need. The last one variable goes without the final coma.
b. Now assign the value to the variables. Go to language/en/common.php find:
before add:
in this example we have assigned the string 'HomePage' to the HOME variable, plus we added the code for linking to a page. Same story for the NEWS variable. Now go to language/your_second_language/common.php and repeat step b. Of course change the strings according to translation. e.g. (Italian) :
Once understood the method it won't be difficult, for instance, to add an image flag to switch language:
Or you can even define 2 different images for the header, playing a bit with your css.
c. Now it's time to put your defined variables into your template example: type {home} and put it wherever you want in overall_template.html. Repeat for each variable you want to place.
Done. Your forum should be now bilingual.
If you have any question ask directly in the support forum.
1. Download and install your preferred laguage from Phpbb official language repository.
2. Download and install "quickly change your language" from here.- (installation is easy, but be sure to have access to mysql admin as it requires a table to be added)
3. Once installed you already can switch language from frontend: you need to type index.php?lang=en or index.php?lang=it or whateverer other language. Type it after the domain adress.
4. Within your template you can create an image flag directly linking to index.php?lang=yourlanguage.
5. Now you can see all forum translated but iconset images will remain untranslated. What you can do at this point is make your set of bilingual iconset images. Use Gimp or Photoshop to create them quickly. (isonsets can be found in styles/your_style/imageset/en for instance if english is set in adm panel as default language. You can directly edit these. Be sure to backup the original ones).
7. Now lets see how to edit templates elements as the flag image, top menu items, etc. the concept is quite simple: define a variable for each element. Define the translated value for each variable and for each language.
This is an example for a menu item (home):
a. define the variable 'home' and 'news': go to includes/functions.php, find:
'T_STYLESHEET_NAME' => $user->theme['theme_name'],
'SITE_LOGO_IMG' => $user->img('site_logo'))
);
and add after:
// custom variables $template->assign_vars(array( 'HOME' => $user->lang['HOME'], 'NEWS' => $user->lang['NEWS'], etc...
add all variables you need. The last one variable goes without the final coma.
b. Now assign the value to the variables. Go to language/en/common.php find:
?>
before add:
// custom variables $lang = array_merge($lang, array( 'HOME' => '<a href="../">HomePage</a>', 'NEWS' => '<a href="../hotnews.html">Hot News!</a>', etc..
in this example we have assigned the string 'HomePage' to the HOME variable, plus we added the code for linking to a page. Same story for the NEWS variable. Now go to language/your_second_language/common.php and repeat step b. Of course change the strings according to translation. e.g. (Italian) :
'NEWS' => '<a href="../notizie.html">Notizie!</a>',
Once understood the method it won't be difficult, for instance, to add an image flag to switch language:
'FLAG' => '<a href="index.php?lang=it"> <img src="styles/your_style/images/it.gif" alt="Scegli la tua lingua: IT" longdesc="Scegli la tua lingua: IT" /></a>',
Or you can even define 2 different images for the header, playing a bit with your css.
c. Now it's time to put your defined variables into your template example: type {home} and put it wherever you want in overall_template.html. Repeat for each variable you want to place.
Done. Your forum should be now bilingual.
