As a WordPress lead developer, every time I see someone recommending editing a core WordPress file, a little bit of me dies.
You should always avoid editing the core files and put your modifications into a plugin so as to ensure you have a smooth upgrade experience to a future WordPress version.
Therefore inspired by the following forum post here is how to change one of the translatable strings in WordPress without hacking a core file using the filters available in the translation functions:
<?php
/*
Plugin Name: PJW Translation Mangler
Plugin URI: http://blog.ftwr.co.uk/#
Description: Example of how to mangle translated strings.
Author: Peter Westwood
Version: 0.01
Author URI: http://blog.ftwr.co.uk/
*/
class PJW_Translation_Mangler {
/**
* Filter the translation string before it is displayed.
*
* @param $translation The current translation
* @param $text The text being translated
* @param $context The context for the translation
* @param $domain The domain for the translation
* @return string The translated / filtered text.
*/
function filter_gettext($translation, $text, $domain) {
$translations = &get_translations_for_domain( $domain );
if ( $text == 'View all posts filed under %s' ) {
return $translations->translate( 'See all articles filed under %s' );
}
return $translation;
}
}
add_filter('gettext', array('PJW_Translation_Mangler', 'filter_gettext'), 10, 4);
?>
The filter used in this example gettext is one of a set of filters in the translation functions in wp-includes/l10n.php which also include gettext_with_context, ngettext, and ngettext_with_context.
Pretty cool. Is there a reason why you put that single function in a class?
Force of habit, more than anything.
I like to do it that way so as to keep everything namespaced and not take top level function names.
I only use top level function names, in plugins, as wrappers when providing template tags.
Hadn’t thought of using that gettext filter. There’s a filter in wp-super-cache that allows you to filter the contents of the page that is about to be cached. I wrote a small function that deletes the moderation message for comments as a small exercise because the string isn’t filterable, or so I thought!
This way is much neater. Thanks!
Really great tip
Is it possible to use this function to re-name admin menu items when activating a theme?
For example, if I wanted to change “Posts” to “News”?
Or the “Appearance” tab back to “Themes” maybe?
I’d love to be able to do total admin menu overhauls using theme functions rather than plugins.
Yes you should be able to do that too very easily with multiple replacements in the one function.
Currently I do something like:
global $menu, $submenu, $wp_taxonomies;
// Unset Post & Page menus so we can change them
unset($menu[5]);
unset($menu[10]);
unset($menu[20]);
// Change menu order to reflect new positions
//New Pages
$menu[5] = array(__('Pages'), 'edit_pages', 'edit-pages.php', '', 'wp-menu-open menu-top', 'menu-pages', 'div');
$submenu['edit-pages.php'][5] = array(__('Edit'), 'edit_pages', 'edit-pages.php');
$submenu['edit-pages.php'][10] = array(_c('Add New|page'), 'edit_pages', 'page-new.php');
//New Posts (News)
$menu[10] = array(__('News'), 'edit_posts', 'edit.php', '', 'menu-top', 'menu-posts', 'div');
$submenu['edit.php'][5] = array(__('Edit'), 'edit_posts', 'edit.php');
.... etc
Which allows me to move menu items (Media between Pages and Posts always annoys me) and rename them, in this case Posts to News.
Is this possible using the translation function?
[...] Translation Strings: Mangling strings for fun and profit: Peter Westwood gives simple tips for improving the quality of translation strings in WordPress Themes. [...]
Thank you very much Westi. I was referred to this solution by DJPaul at BuddyPress Forums when I wanted to find a simpler and easier to override text output from BP parent theme’s template function. From 45 lines of code to replace a single sentence in child theme’s functions.php to 10 lines of code in same functions.php – Awesome!
Your code is somewhat inefficient. The
get_translations_for_domain()call should be inside the if blockAlso, I love the fact that you have more comments than code.