The last time I checked, WordPress was available in about 66 different languages. All of these translations are possible thanks to volunteers. These translators are the primary reason why WordPress has an international following. However, there are more than 66 different languages in use across the world today and if you’re interested in translating WordPress into your specific language, check out the following resources.

Translating WordPress – Explains how to translate WordPress using POT, PO, and MO files.

Installing WordPress In Your Language – This article simply explains how to install WordPress in another language other than English.

I18n for WordPress Developers – I18n is an abbreviation for internationalization, or the process of making an application ready for translation. In the WordPress case it means marking strings, which should be translated in a special way. It is called i18n, because there are 18 letters between the I and the n. Explains how to make your plugin, theme, or application built on top of WordPress I18n compliant.

Files That Need Direct Translation – This Codex article is in need of editing but it contains a list of files up to WordPress 2.6 that need direct translations applied to them.

WP-Polyglots Mailing List – The wp-polyglots mailing list has been created keeping the needs of translators in mind. If you are interested in translating WordPress to suit your locale and language preferences, or would like to get involved in discussions regarding the same, consider joining this list. Also check out the Polyglots mailing list archive.

GlotPress – GlotPress is a new project by Nikolay. GlotPress will be a web-based translation tool similar to how WordPress is a web-based publishing tool. To see how it’s already being used, read this recently published post on the WordPress.com blog.

Are You Thankful?

In 2009, what are you thankful for when it comes to WordPress?

WPLookup will take your query and take you to the corresponding WordPress Codex documentation in the function reference and template tags reference. If your search terms are not found, it will send you directly to a documentation search for your terms.

The site is very much in the nascent stages. And, I’m sure there is a lot more that can be added.

One suggestion could be that instead of sending the user directly to WordPress Codex, WPLookup can generate a search results page with a link to the codex article as well a link to the function declaration in the WordPress code using PHPXref.

The search results page can contain other related tags and links to their specific pages as well.

Any other features you would like to see added?

• Working Hosts, No Issues
• Works With Caveats
• Doesn’t Work

Keep in mind that:

It is important to note that the update feature will not work when updating to Version 2.7, but rather will work for Versions released AFTER 2.7 (e.g. upgrading from 2.7 to 2.7.1)!

If you discover during the beta test period that the core update feature works on your webhosting account, please add the company to the Codex article within the appropriate section.

For those wanting to add this type of support to your theme, you can install WP-Print. WP-Print picks up where most theme authors have left off by providing printing support in such a way that end users can print either articles or comments, depending on how you have configured the plugin.

In fact, doing a search on the plugin database for the keyword of “print” brought up two pages worth of search results. Another solution for you theme authors out there is called Bunny’s Print CSS. This plugin provides two files, print-css.php which is the plugin file and print.css which is the print stylesheet.

A link to the print stylesheet will be placed in your theme’s header, providing it uses the wp_head() function/hook. An admin panel is added to the Presentations menu and it will allow you to edit the stylesheet if you make print.css writeable. You probably want to edit the stylesheet provided to your liking, though it will hopefully do most of the job if your theme is sandbox-based.

This method takes most of the hard work out of creating a print.css file, even though theme authors would most likely have to modify the stylesheet to make it compatible with their theme.

For those who would like to manually create the style sheet, there is an article on the Codex entitled “Styling For Print” which covers all of the basics necessary to make a pretty, yet functional print stylesheet to include with your theme/themes.

I hope that by linking to the Codex article and bringing this issue to light, we will start to see more themes being released with built in printing support. It’s not a deal breaker for me, but I’d rather see themes that support this feature than those that don’t. My personal opinion is that, printing support is a nice finishing touch to round off any theme, and having it built in allows me and a number of other users to stop using another plugin.

Now it’s time for you to sound off. Is this a trivial issue, or is there anyone else out there that would like to see this feature in more themes?

If you visit the MyCroft page on Mozdev.org you’ll notice a number of links that you can click on. Each one of these links are a search engine plugin that was coded for FireFox. What this means is that, you can add WordPress specific search engines to the search engine tool bar within FireFox which is usually occupied by Google by default.

In order to install a SE plugin, simply click on the link that represents the search engine you want to have installed. For example, if you want the WordPress Codex to be one of the search engines within FireFox, click on the WordPress Codex plugin name. Upon clicking on the plugin name, FireFox will ask you if you would like to add the search engine to the list of search engines available in the search bar. Clicking the ADD button will add that specific SE to the list of choices within the search bar.

This tip has been an awesome time saver. Not only can I quickly answer questions in the chat room, but it is more convenient to search the plugin repository from within my browser than to actually search from the actual page.

As it turns out, you can register an account with the Codex website. For whatever reason, I’ve never noticed this until it was pointed out to me. Once I registered an account, I saw a wealth of options that I hadn’t seen before. After clicking on My Preferences to manage my account, I noticed I could change the skin that is displayed on the Codex. By default, the Codex (default) skin is chosen, but the one that closely resembles the look and feel of Wikipedia is called Monobook.

After changing the skin, you’ll notice on the left hand part of the page that there is a section called a Toolbox. Within this tool box is the coveted Printer Version link which will change the article’s page layout so that it is printer friendly. I have gone back and changed my skin back to the default codex to see if registering an account produced this toolbox.However, there simply is no printer version link within the default skin.

Personally, I enjoy browsing the Codex through the Monobook skin. Thanks to Wikipedia, many people are already used to the layout, so it shouldn’t be that hard of a switch.