Those unwilling or unable to make use of Transifex, we here describe a manual mechanism for creating an installable extension pack. For translating extensions for Joomla! 1.6, 1.7, 2.5 see this article: Creating language packs for extensions in Joomla 1.6/1.7: http://docs.joomla.org/Creating_language_packs_for_extensions_in_Joomla_1.6/1.7
For an example we will illustrate the build of the Portuguese Brazilian language for the Macrotone Issue Tracker component.
1) We will prepare folder structure for the new created translation. Create the following folders on your disc:
lang/admin lang/site
Open text editor and paste the following content:
<HTML><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"></body></html>
Save it as index.html in all folders (as lang/admin/index.html, lang/site/index.html and lang/index.html).
2) Unzip the Macrotone Issue Tracker component ZIP file somewhere on your disc.
Go to:
admin/language/en-GB/
(which is included in the unzipped Macrotone Issue Tracker structure) and open both files in your text editor:
en-GB.com_issuetracker.ini en-GB.com_issuetracker.sys.ini
Translate the strings to your language and save them as (in our example we use Portuguese Brazilian prefixes):
lang/admin/pt-BR.com_issuetracker.ini lang/admin/pt-BR.com_issuetracker.sys.ini
Go to:
site/language/en-GB/
(which is included in the unzipped Macrotone Issue Tracker structure) and open the file in your text editor:
en-GB.com_issuetracker.ini
Translate the strings to your language and save it as (in our example we use Portuguese Brazilian prefixes):
lang/site/pt-BR.com_issuetracker.ini
Files should be saved as UTF-8 without BOM encoding.
3) Open text editor and paste there the following content:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <extension type="file" version="2.5" method="upgrade"> <name>pt-BR.com_issuetracker</name> <tag>pt-BR</tag> <version>1.1.0</version> <creationDate>01/04/2012</creationDate> <author>Macrotone Consulting Ltd</author> <authorEmail>This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. </authorEmail> <authorUrl>www.macrotoneconsulting.co.uk/authorUrl> <copyright>(C) 2012 Macrotone Consulting Ltd</copyright> <license>http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GNU/GPL</license> <description>Brazilian-Portuguese language pack - Issue Tracker</description> <fileset> <files folder="admin" target="administrator/language/pt-BR"> <filename>pt-BR.com_issuetracker.ini</filename> <filename>pt-BR.com_issuetracker.sys.ini</filename> <filename>index.html</filename> </files> <files folder="site" target="language/pt-BR"> <filename>pt-BR.com_issuetracker.ini</filename> <filename>index.html</filename> </files> </fileset> </extension>
Edit it, changing the language specifics and the author as required and save it as:
lang/install.xml file.
So now you should have the following folder structure in the folder lang:
install.xml index.html admin/index.html admin/pt-BR.com_issuetracker.ini admin/pt-BR.com_issuetracker.sys.ini site/index.html site/pt-BR.com_issuetracker.ini
Select all files included in lang folder and add them into ZIP file called lang-prefix-LANG-PREFIX.com_issuetracker.zip (in our example the file will have the following name: pt-BR.com_issuetracker.zip).
Now the translation is ready and can be installed via standard Joomla! installation procedure.
Remember that the Joomla Language core pack for your desired language must be installed otherwise the language installation will fail.