Translate your forum
Your members do not all think in English. From today you can translate everything they see, the forum, the emails, the notifications, into any language you like, straight from your admin panel. The admin panel itself stays in English, so guides and support always match what you see.
How it works
English is the source language. Every piece of interface text is a string, and your board keeps its own set of translations per language. Anything you have not translated yet simply shows in English, so a half-finished language never breaks anything. Member content such as posts, topic titles and usernames is never touched.
The Languages page
You find it under Appearance in your admin panel. Add a language with a name and a two letter code, like Nederlands and nl. New languages start as a draft: you can translate and preview them, but members will not see them until you press Enable. The page shows a progress bar per language so you always know how far along you are.
At the bottom you pick the board language, which is what guests and new members get, and you can allow members to pick their own language. When you allow that, a language selector appears next to the theme selector on the board index, and members get a language option in their preferences.
The string editor
Edit strings opens a table with the English text on the left and your translation on the right. Filter by untranslated, search for any text, or narrow down to one app such as Emails, Notifications or Menus and widgets. Type your translations and press Save changes, they go live immediately for that language.
Two things to watch. Placeholders like :name and :count must stay in your translation, we check this for you and refuse a translation that lost one. Plural strings contain a | character separating the singular and plural form, keep that structure in your translation.
Live translate mode
The fastest way to translate is on the forum itself. Press Live translate on the Languages page and you land on your board with a bar at the top. Every translatable text gets a dashed outline: amber means untranslated, green means done. Long press any outlined text and a small editor opens where you stand, save and every occurrence on the page updates at once. Short clicks keep working normally, so you can browse from page to page and translate as you go.
The counter in the bar, for example 254 untranslated on this page, is a button. Click it and a sidebar lists every untranslated string on the current page, click an entry and we scroll you to it with the editor open. Work the list top to bottom and the page is done.
Next to it you may see something like 32 hidden strings. Those are texts that live inside attributes rather than on the page: tooltips, input placeholders, screen reader labels. They have no spot you can click, so they get a dotted outline on the element that carries them, and the hidden strings button opens a sidebar listing them all. Both work with the same editor.
Export and import
Every language exports to a single JSON file, either everything or only the missing strings. Hand it to a translator, fill it in yourself, or use whatever workflow you prefer, then import it back. We validate the file before saving anything: unknown strings are skipped, broken placeholders are refused, and you get a full report of what happened. The English row offers an empty template if you want to start a new language outside the editor.
Good to know
- Draft languages are visible to staff only. Use the language selector on the board index to preview a draft across the whole forum.
- A few texts are drawn by scripts after the page loads, such as editor placeholders. You cannot click those in live mode, but they are all in the string editor.
- Strings with placeholders or plural forms show their final shape after a page reload, the editor tells you when that applies.
- New features automatically add their strings to the catalog, so your untranslated count may tick up after an update. That is new text waiting for you, nothing was lost.