Translating MidCOM and components
MidCOM includes a localization tool for translating the user interface and content schemas into different languages.
Set permissions properly
MidCOM's translation strings are located in the file system. To translate a component you must first give Apache write permissions to the localization file. For example, if your MidCOM installation is in /usr/share/midgard/midcom, and you want to translate the news ticker component, you can add the permissions in the following way:
# chown -R www-data /usr/share/midgard/midcom/lib/de/linkm/newsticker/locale
This supposes the your Apache is running as www-data user like it does on Debian GNU/Linux. On Red Hat-based systems Apache is running as nobody.
Use the translation interface
The translation interface is available by default in all MidCOM template powered websites. Go to the /midcom-admin/ subdirectory of your website and log in as administrator. You should see the following screen:
Select Localization tool and you will get to a screen where you can select the language you want to translate to, and the component to translate. If your language is not in the list, you can add it to the database.
Now you should have the actual translation editor open. Translate all the strings shown in English to your language in the right-hand text fields.
When you're happy with your translation, copy the locale file from your server and send it to the Midgard developer mailing list.
The file is in the locale directory of the component, and is named default.<language>.txt.