J3.x:Developing an MVC Component/Adding language management

Translate this page

Other languages:

English • ‎Nederlands • ‎español • ‎français • ‎العربية • ‎中文（台灣）‎

This Page Needs Your Help

Joomla!

3.x

Tutorial

Developing an MVC Component

This is a multiple-article series of tutorials on how to develop a Model-View-Controller Component for Joomla! Version.

Begin with the Introduction, and navigate the articles in this series by using the navigation button at the bottom or the box to the right (the Articles in this series).

Introduction

This tutorial is part of the Developing an MVC Component for Joomla! 3.2 tutorial. You are encouraged to read the previous parts of the tutorial before reading this.

You can watch a video associated with this step in the tutorial at Step 8, Adding Language Management.

Joomla! 3.2 manages languages for components in four different situations:

displaying a component in the public site
managing a component in the backend
managing menus in the backend
installing a component

Joomla! 3.2 uses two different location folder for languages:

one in administrator/language or language
one in the component folder (administrator/components/*component*/language or components/*component*/language)

It depends how the component is installed.

Adding language translation in the public site

With your favourite file manager and editor, put a file site/language/en-GB/en-GB.com_helloworld.ini. This file will contain translation for the public part. For the moment, this file is empty.

site/language/en-GB/en-GB.com_helloworld.ini

For the moment, there are no translations strings in this file.

Adding language translation when managing the component

With your favourite file manager and editor, put a file admin/language/en-GB/en-GB.com_helloworld.ini. This file will contain translation for the backend part.

admin/language/en-GB/en-GB.com_helloworld.ini

; Joomla! Project
; Copyright (C) 2005 - 2018 Open Source Matters. All rights reserved.
; License GNU General Public License version 2 or later; see LICENSE.txt, see LICENSE.php
; Note : All ini files need to be saved as UTF-8

COM_HELLOWORLD_NUM="#"
COM_HELLOWORLD_PUBLISHED="Published"
COM_HELLOWORLD_HELLOWORLDS_NAME="Name"
COM_HELLOWORLD_ID="Id"

COM_HELLOWORLD_HELLOWORLD_FIELD_GREETING_DESC="This message will be displayed"
COM_HELLOWORLD_HELLOWORLD_FIELD_GREETING_LABEL="Message"
COM_HELLOWORLD_HELLOWORLD_HEADING_GREETING="Greeting"
COM_HELLOWORLD_HELLOWORLD_HEADING_ID="Id"

Adding language translation when managing the menus in the backend

With your favourite file manager and editor, put a file admin/language/en-GB/en-GB.com_helloworld.sys.ini. This file will contain translation for the backend part.

admin/language/en-GB/en-GB.com_helloworld.sys.ini

; Joomla! Project
; Copyright (C) 2005 - 2015 Open Source Matters. All rights reserved.
; License GNU General Public License version 2 or later; see LICENSE.txt, see LICENSE.php
; Note : All ini files need to be saved as UTF-8

COM_HELLOWORLD="Hello World!"
COM_HELLOWORLD_DESCRIPTION="This is the Hello World description"
COM_HELLOWORLD_HELLOWORLD_VIEW_DEFAULT_TITLE="Hello World"
COM_HELLOWORLD_HELLOWORLD_VIEW_DEFAULT_DESC="This view displays a selected message"
COM_HELLOWORLD_MENU="Hello World!"

Language File Location Options

Starting with version 1.7 there are 2 ways to install language files for an extension. One can use one or the other or a combination of both.

The 1.5 way will install the files in the CORE language folders (ROOT/administrator/language/ and ROOT/language/). Since version 1.6, include the files in a "language" folder installed at the root of the extension.

Therefore an extension can include a language folder with a .sys.ini different from the one installed in the Joomla core language folders. (This last one not being included in that language folder but in root or any other folder not installed.)

This lets us display 2 different descriptions: one from the sys.ini in the "language" folder is used as a message displayed when installation is finished, the other (from the .ini) is used for "normal" operation, that is, when the extension is edited in the back-end. This can be extremely useful when the installation also uses some scripts and requires a different value for the description.

You Should Note!

Therefore, the xml would include since 1.6:

<files>
<[...]
<folder>language</folder>  // This folder HAS to include the right subfolders, i.e. language/en-GB/ ... language/fr-FR/
<filename>whatever</filename>
[...]
</files>

<administration>
    <files folder="admin">
        <[...]
        <folder>language</folder>
        <filename>whatever</filename>
        <[...]
    </files>
</administration>

and/or then (1.5 way):

<languages folder="joomlacorelanguagefolders"> // If using another language folder for cleanliness. (Any folder name will fit.)
<language tag="en-GB">en-GB/en-GB.whatever.ini</language> // or
<language tag="en-GB">en-GB.whatever.ini</language> if no tagged subfolder
<language tag="en-GB">en-GB/en-GB.whatever.sys.ini</language> // or
<language tag="en-GB">en-GB.whatever.sys.ini</language> if no tagged subfolder
</languages>

or simply in ROOT:

<languages>
<language tag="en-GB">en-GB.whatever.ini</language>
<language tag="en-GB">en-GB.whatever.sys.ini</language>
</languages>

Language file used by the installation script during the installation of a component(the first install, not an upgrade) obeys specific rules described in the article, Specification of language files. During the first installation, only the language file included in the component folder (/administrator/components/com_helloworld/language) is used when present. If this file is only provided in the CORE language folder (/administrator/language), no translation occurs. This also applies to KEYs used in the manifest file.

When upgrading or uninstalling the extension (not installing), it is the sys.ini file present in the extension root language folder which will display the result of the installation from the description key/value. Thereafter, if present, the sys.ini as well as the .ini installed in the CORE language folder will have priority over the files present in the root language folder of the extension.

Advantages of Extension "Language" Folder

The other advantage is that this folder can include multiple languages (en-GB always, fr-FR, it-IT, etc.) not requiring the user to install the corresponding language pack. This is handy as they are available if, later on, a user installs the corresponding pack.

Packaging the component

Content of your code directory

Create a compressed file of this directory or directly download the archive and install it using the extension manager of Joomla. You can add a menu item of this component using the menu manager in the backend.

helloworld.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<extension type="component" version="3.0" method="upgrade">

	<name>COM_HELLOWORLD</name>
	<!-- The following elements are optional and free of formatting constraints -->
	<creationDate>January 2018</creationDate>
	<author>John Doe</author>
	<authorEmail>john.doe@example.org</authorEmail>
	<authorUrl>http://www.example.org</authorUrl>
	<copyright>Copyright Info</copyright>
	<license>License Info</license>
	<!--  The version string is recorded in the components table -->
	<version>0.0.8</version>
	<!-- The description is optional and defaults to the name -->
	<description>COM_HELLOWORLD_DESCRIPTION</description>

	<install> <!-- Runs on install -->
		<sql>
			<file driver="mysql" charset="utf8">sql/install.mysql.utf8.sql</file>
		</sql>
	</install>
	<uninstall> <!-- Runs on uninstall -->
		<sql>
			<file driver="mysql" charset="utf8">sql/uninstall.mysql.utf8.sql</file>
		</sql>
	</uninstall>
	<update> <!-- Runs on update; New since J2.5 -->
		<schemas>
			<schemapath type="mysql">sql/updates/mysql</schemapath>
		</schemas>
	</update>

	<!-- Site Main File Copy Section -->
	<!-- Note the folder attribute: This attribute describes the folder
		to copy FROM in the package to install therefore files copied
		in this section are copied from /site/ in the package -->
	<files folder="site">
		<filename>index.html</filename>
		<filename>helloworld.php</filename>
		<filename>controller.php</filename>
		<folder>views</folder>
		<folder>models</folder>
	</files>

	<languages folder="site/language">
		<language tag="en-GB">en-GB/en-GB.com_helloworld.ini</language>
	</languages>

	<administration>
		<!-- Administration Menu Section -->
		<menu link='index.php?option=com_helloworld'>COM_HELLOWORLD_MENU</menu>
		<!-- Administration Main File Copy Section -->
		<!-- Note the folder attribute: This attribute describes the folder
			to copy FROM in the package to install therefore files copied
			in this section are copied from /admin/ in the package -->
		<files folder="admin">
			<!-- Admin Main File Copy Section -->
			<filename>index.html</filename>
			<filename>helloworld.php</filename>
			<filename>controller.php</filename>
			<!-- SQL files section -->
			<folder>sql</folder>
			<!-- tables files section -->
			<folder>tables</folder>
			<!-- models files section -->
			<folder>models</folder>
			<!-- views files section -->
			<folder>views</folder>
		</files>
		<languages folder="admin/language">
			<language tag="en-GB">en-GB/en-GB.com_helloworld.ini</language>
			<language tag="en-GB">en-GB/en-GB.com_helloworld.sys.ini</language>
		</languages>
	</administration>

</extension>

In this helloworld.xml file, languages are installed in:

administrator/language for the admin part (look at the xml languages tag).
components/com_helloworld/language for the site part (there are no xml languages tag in the site part of the xml description file, but the language folder is included).

General Information

Contributors

Prev: Basic backend

Next: Adding backend actions

J3.x