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The Adventist Living Pattern System is designed to be used by any Adventist church or institution that can make use of it. We recognize that English is spoken by many, but is certainly not universal. So we need your help to translate it into your local languages.

Currently we have versions in German, Russian, and Spanish, but would love to add more! Here are some quick instructions on how to get the translation content to us to include in the project.

Project Files

To localize a theme or plugin, Wordpress uses something called `.po` files. PO stands for Portable Object, and is a simple text file that includes a series of text strings and where they are located in a project. Each translation requires its own PO file for each language. We generate a `.pot` file or Portable Object Template, that contains every string and serves as a starting point for a translation.

ALPS for Wordpress is made up of two things: 

• ALPS for Wordpress theme
• ALPS Gutenberg Blocks plugin (This is installed by the theme.)

To start a translation, you will need to download and save the following files: 

• ALPS for Wordpress - alps.pot file
• ALPS Gutenberg Blocks - alps-gutenberg-blocks.pot

How to use POEdit to Create Localized .po Files

The first step to translating is to download the free version of the program POEdit. They have a paid version which offers additional features, including machine-translation, but the free version should do fine for this.

Open POEdit

When you open POEdit for the first time, you are presented with this screen.

From the options, select “Create new translation”.

In the resulting box, select the .pot file you downloaded. We will start with `alps.pot`.

Next, select the language you want to translate into. In this example, we have selected `French`. Click OK.

The next screen will present you with the translation information, one line for each phrase.

At the bottom of the window, you will see two spaces, Source text, and Translation. For each phrase, enter the correct text in your language before moving to the next. You can mark a phrase that you want to come back to with `Needs Work` and it will show in orange on the list.

Once you have complete translating all the phrases, save the resulting file. This .po file, fr.po, in this example, will then be able to be included in the project so that anyone who installs the theme on a site localized to that language will have the correct phrases, not only in the admin interface, but in the buttons and text on the public side of the site.
Repeat this same process for the both ALPS for Wordpress and ALPS Gutenberg blocks and then submit the resulting file for inclusion in the project via a ticket.