Hello Sebastian,
I appreciate the fact that language packs are maintained by volunteers and other professionals like you and those who do it should be given credit for.
My question concerns the use of the packs for various dnn versions and I'd appreciate some clarifications on this. For instance, I am now building a couple of sites on dnn 5.6.2 with a significant number of languages. For instance, I have just been on dnn-usergroup.de to look for the German pack and the latest version I found is for 5.1 (core). Is that 'good enough' or is there a better version? I think there are significan t changes between 5.1 and 5.6.2, hence the worry.
Apparently there are some explanations, but because they are in German I could not really understand them fully.
If German is relatively late, what about other less popular languages? For English-UK I only found it for dnn 4.9 (I guess the solution for that is to use the US English and replace the flag and tooltip.
What do you suggest?

Besides, we seem to have the choice between core and core+main modules. What are these main modules? What would you do if you need just, say, the feedback and forum modules? Can one start with the core and then supersede it with the extended version?

Could you clarify the whole topic a bit? That'd be very kind of you. Of course, anybody here having experience with multilingual sites is invited to contribute. This is a crucial point for DNN and need to be understood and managed to its highest level.

Thanks a lot,

Franco

Hi Franco,

I'm sorry this part is so confusing. Unfortunately the whole language pack subject is pretty complex. But in short:

DNN (and most modules) come with resource files (.ascx.resx files) that are basically XML files that hold large amounts of key-value pairs where the values are the texts you see on screen. By creating similar files with a language code (.ascx.fr-FR.resx for instance) we can override the texts for our language.

With each new version of the software we may change these texts. Remove/add etc. It is not commonly known how many changes there are though. So it is up to the translators to find out if and how many changes there are and if this warrants a new pack release.

About the Core and Main modules: there is some confusion here. But basically when you install DNN you automatically install the Html module. So this is a core module. But you also have modules like Blog, Announcements, Newfeeds, etc ready to install but not yet installed when you first install DNN. These are probably the "main modules" you have read about. They are sometimes referred to as core modules.

OK, so far that was technical. Now the practical. Most translators (like Sebastian) do this work of translating out of the kindness of their heart. It is very time intensive and should not be underestimated. In the DNN core team (and specifically the internationalization team) we do what we can to make it easier for these people, but it remains a chore. So it is hardly surprising that with the number of DNN 5 releases we've had (almost one per Month) there is a lag between core version and available language pack. DNN doesn't necessarily release a new platform version when he/she is available to work on a pack.

What this means for you is that it is a hit-or-miss thing when you have to use language packs. There is no way that I can tell you "o, between version x and y there are not that many changes". You'll just have to see for yourself on a staging site. Technically you have the capability to make/complete the translations yourself. But I fully understand you'd like to have them for free.

In the DNN INT team we are trying to improve on several fronts. The Localization Editor project hopes to help with for instance giving you feedback on completeness of a pack.

Hope this helps,

Peter

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Peter Donker

http://www.bring2mind.net Home of the Document Exchange, the professional document management solution for DNN

Thank you so much, Peter.
To remain on the practical side, yes, it is preferable to obtain those files instead of tweaking them ourselves because in many cases we do not master the language itself (double challenge).
However, does it mean that any version 5 resource file will work for dnn5, i.e, we do not risk breaking anything, but just to have some/many misses?

Besides, can we just replace the resx file with another version or patch (via FTP, for instance) or does it requires the full installation process each time? Or is better to go via the language-local resource menu? Or the editor module you indicated?

Franco