[Plugin: Football Pool] Language

I’m sorry, but I guess I have to disappoint you. I don’t know how to use the multi-lingual features of WordPress either. Or, to be more precise: I can’t get it to work and I don’t understand why it won’t work.

I have a language file and every text in the plugin code is done with gettext (the __() function), but I can’t get it to work. That’s why I decided to use Dutch as the main language in the code (my own football pool is in Dutch).

I managed to get it to work using the instructions here: https://ryan.boren.me/2004/11/01/localizing-plugins-and-themes/

There are just a few more strings that need translating as well as the data file and I hopefully will have it working in English.

I’m looking forward to testing it properly!

I forgot to update the pot and po files since the last update, that’s why your missing some translations. I can update the files if you want.

I am curious what you did exactly, because when I follow the instructions from your link it still does not work on my local development machine. Maybe because I’m running Windows? I don’t know. Really frustrating…

The language files needed to go in to the root of the plugins directory (which does seem wrong to me, but it worked) and I needed to add the line:

load_plugin_textdomain(FOOTBALLPOOL_TEXT_DOMAIN);

into the end of the define.php. Finally, I needed to define the language I wanted in the wp-config.php – e.g. define (‘WPLANG’, ‘en_GB’);

Where do the menu item text get defined?
Also, any chance you’d be willing to translate your instruction page for me (Google Translate is doing a terrible job).

By the way, not sure if you’d be interested in adding this feature, but a similar pool to this that I’ve seen in the past allowed you to put the time that the first goal was scored in for each match (for extra bonus points). Obviously I could create bonus questions for each game to do this, but I thought it would be nicer to have it as part of the normal match predictions part. Just an idea anyway.

Your plugin seems really good so far – many thanks for all your hard work!

The language files needed to go in to the root of the plugins directory (which does seem wrong to me, but it worked) and I needed to add the line:

load_plugin_textdomain(FOOTBALLPOOL_TEXT_DOMAIN);

into the end of the define.php. Finally, I needed to define the language I wanted in the wp-config.php – e.g. define (‘WPLANG’, ‘en_GB’);

Thanks. I’m gonna give it a try tonight.

Where do the menu item text get defined?

What menu item texts do you mean? Don’t think I understand your question.

Also, any chance you’d be willing to translate your instruction page for me (Google Translate is doing a terrible job).

Sure, no problem. But you’ll have to correct my grammatical mistakes and not-so-perfect English (although it won’t be as bad as Google Translate).

By the way, not sure if you’d be interested in adding this feature, but a similar pool to this that I’ve seen in the past allowed you to put the time that the first goal was scored in for each match (for extra bonus points). Obviously I could create bonus questions for each game to do this, but I thought it would be nicer to have it as part of the normal match predictions part. Just an idea anyway.

It’s not something I would use as a feature. So, if I would want to implement it, it must be configurable. For this tournament I’m not gonna do any more changes that have a big impact on the code. My focus is on getting/keeping it stable ??
Maybe in the 2014 World Cup release.

I meant the text for the menu items that get created when the plugin is activated. But no worries, I translated these manually.

Don’t worry about translating the entire of the help file. I managed to work most of it out thanks to Google. I am still a little confused about how the joker/wildcard works however (this part didn’t translate well at all). Can it be re-set after every game or only before the tournament? How exactly does it affect the points/scores?

A quick question about the bonus questions feature:
If say, you added a question “Which player will receive the golden boot?”. Can any of these be worked out automatically? Or will it always required the admin to go and mark the answers?

I am still a little confused about how the joker/wildcard works however (this part didn’t translate well at all).

The joker (or is wildcard a better translation?) can be set to one game. But a player may change his mind as many times as long as a game is not locked (by default 15 minutes before a game starts). When a game is locked it is no longer possible to add the wildcard to that game.

And if a game is locked which has the wildcard added, then it is not possible to remove the wildcard. Once set and locked, it remains set.

A wildcard doubles the points for that match. But if you’re wrong, then two times zero is … well, you get the point.

A quick question about the bonus questions feature:
If say, you added a question “Which player will receive the golden boot?”. Can any of these be worked out automatically? Or will it always required the admin to go and mark the answers?

The bonus question feature always requires an admin to mark the answers.
At the moment I don’t have any plans of ‘upgrading’ that functionality.

Thanks for the help, much appreciated.

Hmm, joker/wildcard. Difficult to say which is best. Perhaps just bonus card is better…

I finally got the translations working with the translation files in the languages directory. All this time I was using an absolute path where I should’ve used a relative path.

Next release (1.3.4) will contain the updated code.
Thanks for hinting me in the right direction.

Ah, nicely done.

If I update, will it just overwrite code files or will it re-install the database & site pages too?

This update will overwrite code and do some changes to the bonusquestion table, but without destroying data. In fact, I always try to update existing data without overwriting it. Your page content won’t be touched by the update.

If you have made custom changes to code or styling, or custom translation files, then it’s wise to make a back-up of those.