Koha 17.05/Creating additional languages for the Graphical User Interfaces

Introduction

The graphical user interfaces für the Koha staff client and the Koha OPAC use English (en) as the standard language but they are also translated into many other languages - some of these translations are complete, other translations are still incomplete.

All the text you see in Koha can be stored in 2 different places:

• Templates
• Database (item type descriptions, patron categories, authorised values etc.)

The translation process described here is about managing the template translations. "po" files are used to store the translations and the latest version of the files will be included in every release.

The descriptions stored in the database can be changed in the staff client. For some languages Koha provides translated data for the web installer. If you want to make use of those, make sure that you install your preferred language before running the web installer for the first time!

So if you want to use English (en) as your preferred language you won't have to install any additional interface language.

As a German-speaking user you will want to use German as your preferred language. In whatever country you live (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) you will have to install the additional interface language German (de-DE) because there are no web installer translations for other variations of German (e. g. de-CH).

Showing the available additional languages for Koha

The following command shows you all the available additional languages that can be installed.

$ sudo koha-translate --list --available
am-Ethi
ar-Arab
as-IN
...

Not all these languages can be used as a language for the web installer! However, if you want a web installer in German then use "de-DE".

Installing an additional interface language

Change to the following directory.

$ cd /usr/share/koha/misc/translator

Give the Koha instance that you want the additional language to be installed for (in the example it is "mylibrary").

$ INSTANCE=mylibrary

Install the additional language (in the example it is "de-DE"). This takes about 30 seconds.

$ sudo env PERL5LIB=/usr/share/koha/lib \
    KOHA_CONF=/etc/koha/sites/$INSTANCE/koha-conf.xml \
    perl translate install de-DE

Showing the installed additional languages

The following command shows you all the available additional languages that are actually installed. In the following example you only see the language "de-DE" but of course the standard language "en" is available as well.

$ sudo koha-translate --list
de-DE

Activating installed additional languages

When you have installed a new additional language you will have to activate it in the Koha staff client menu "Koha administration > Global system Preferences > I18N/L10N" in the following system preferences.

Preference	Description
language	Enables the language(s) available in the Koha staff client.
opaclanguages	Enables the language(s) available in the Koha OPAC.

Weblinks

Herausgeber	Sprache	Webseitentitel	Anmerkungen
Koha Community	eng	Installation of additional languages for OPAC and INTRANET staff clientwbm