[Koha-devel] Templates internationalisation

[paul POULAIN]

Jerome Vizcaino wrote:

>Hi
>
>This mail contains a modification we made to make Koha template
>translation a lot more easier.
>Here is the idea :
>We created a table in Koha named opac_text containing three field 
>	- id : the identifier of the text
>	- lang : corresponding language
>	- label : the text to be used
>
>Using the Label.pm, we use a gettexttemplate to get the label
>corresponding to the requested id. This way, with only one .tmpl file,
>unlimited languages are available without any changes in the .tmpl file.
>
>To prove this trick is usable and not so hard to implement we've
>attached 4 files : Label.pm, opac-detail.pl, opac-detail.tmpl and
>opac_text.sql.
>
>Here is how to test it :
>
>1 - Create the table containing the labels : 
>	mysql -u root -p < opac_text.sql
>
>2 - Copy the Label.pm in the C4 module directory
>
>3 - Copy opac-detail.pl to the opac/ cgi-bin directory
>
>4 - Copy opac-detail.tmpl to the opac/htdocs/opac-tmpl/default/en
>directory. Make a link to this file in the
>opac/htdocs/opac-tmpl/default/fr so that no physical duplication is
>needed. This way changing the opaclanguages preference will still use
>the generic template.
>
>Now try and search a book and click on one of the result to show the
>details. If you're using either 'en' or 'fr' opaclanguages option.
>Changing the preference will change the language in the display.
>
>For sure, it requires a little more cpu to display the page but with a
>PII 350 (our test machine) no noticable slow down was reported.
>
>Using a system like the authorised value builder, creation of new
>languages would be made easier.
>
>We need some feedback on this please :)
>  
>
2 coders remarks :
* the replace should be done IN the gettemplate_and_user sub.
* the replace should use a loop and not a loonnggg list of 
tmpl->param("TEXT_*" => somevalue)

What i think nice :
* 100% compatible with present templates. If the table is empty, no 
diff, and no perf problem.

What i don't find nice :
* the idea of generic template only is to risky, imho. For many reasons. 
But what is nice is that the gettemplate_and_user auto selects the en 
template if the prefered language does not exists. So, for templates 
that can stay 100% language independant, no need for a link => just 
don't create a fr copy of the template.

Questions :
* does the table be theme independant ? I think yes. This reinforce my 
opinion to use this trick only for generic texts, like "logged in as" or 
"subtitle".

conclusion : this is a nice proposal, if we keep it only for "standard" 
words/expressions. Otherwise, the table will be too hard to maintain, 
and the problem with templates will be splitted in 1 pl script, 1 tmpl 
file, 1 DB table. Too much imho to be maintainable.

PS : in label.pm, it's better to return "unknown label id $id" than 
"unknown label id".

-- 
Paul POULAIN
Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres
responsable francophone de koha (SIGB libre http://www.koha-fr.org)