Topic: How to change built in BuddyPress verbiage

How to change built in BuddyPress verbiage

John James Jacoby
Keymaster

@johnjamesjacoby

15 years, 3 months ago

If you’re like me and really like customizing BuddyPress to fit your needs, then sometimes the built in BuddyPress verbiage might not fit for your particular website. Maybe you need to rename “Wire” to “Wall” or you don’t like that avatars are called “Avatars” and want to rename them “Profile Pictures,” well it’s actually way easier to do than you’d think and it doesn’t involve modifying ANY core files at all…

If your sites native language is English, then in your bp-languages folder all you need is a buddypress-es_US.po file. Then, use your favorite po/mo editor to change the text that you want changed, save the file, and upload it to your site.

Done.

That’s right; WordPress, bbPress, and BuddyPress all allow you to do this. So if you don’t like some of the hard-coded verbiage that any of the platforms use, you can change it simply by modifying your own languages po/mo file.

You could go nuts with this method, and create an English/Pig-latin translation. Klingon? Sure! Pirate English? Go right ahead! Start with English and change it up however you wish.

Viewing 17 replies - 1 through 17 (of 17 total)

r-a-y
Keymaster

@r-a-y

15 years, 3 months ago

I’ve already done this and the custom language file works wonders!

Although you’ll have to learn the lingo all you mo-po’s out there! (bad joke, but anyway!)

cecilporter
Participant

@cecilporter

14 years, 11 months ago

Is this still the way to do it?

It doesn’t work for me using WPMU 2.8.6 w/ BuddyPress 1.1.3

David Lewis
Participant

@takeo

14 years, 11 months ago

Can anyone recommend a GUI po/mo editor for Mac that works?

Xevo
Participant

@xevo

14 years, 11 months ago

http://www.poedit.net/download.php

Also for Mac.

John James Jacoby
Keymaster

@johnjamesjacoby

14 years, 11 months ago

@cecilporter, same rules still apply. Don’t forget to save your po/mo’s and upload them.

jamesyeah
Participant

@jamesyeah

14 years, 11 months ago

Hmm I changed some stuff in Poedit and uploaded both files mo/po to bp-languages but it didn’t change anything, am I missing anything?

Paul Wong-Gibbs
Keymaster

@djpaul

14 years, 11 months ago

Poedit is the buggiest bit of Mac software I’ve ever used.

Mike Pratt
Participant

@mikepratt

14 years, 11 months ago

@djpaul re poedit. I must be missing something. seems to work fine for me. what issues do you notice and is there a better mac po file editor you like?

Jean-Pierre Michaud
Participant

@nexia

14 years, 11 months ago

POEdit for mac is not that buggy… until you decide to edit a .po file… ROFL

so keep it closed!

David Lewis
Participant

@takeo

14 years, 11 months ago

All of which comes back to my question above… can anyone recommend a GUI po/mo editor for Mac that works? Or is poedit the only option out there?

cecilporter
Participant

@cecilporter

14 years, 11 months ago

@johnjamesjacoby I made tons of major changes to the verbiage, upoaded my new po/mo files.. but like @jamesyeah it didn’t change anything on my site.

abcde666
Participant

@erich73

14 years, 11 months ago

I also used “PO edit” and changed some text within this editor. Then I uploaded via FTP to my server, but the words did not change.

So is PO-edit for MAC only ?

Is there any other better editor for changing these language-files ?

I do not have a MAC, just plain Windows XP Home.
r-a-y
Keymaster

@r-a-y

14 years, 11 months ago
You have to add a define line in your bp-custom.php.

Say you have your languages files called piglatin.mo and piglatin.po.

Upload the files to /wp-content/plugins/buddypress/bp-languages/.

Then this is what you’d put in your /wp-content/plugins/bp-custom.php:
```
define( 'BPLANG', 'piglatin' );

if ( file_exists( BP_PLUGIN_DIR . '/bp-languages/' . BPLANG . '.mo' ) ) {

load_textdomain( 'buddypress', BP_PLUGIN_DIR . '/bp-languages/' . BPLANG . '.mo' );

}
```
cecilporter
Participant

@cecilporter

14 years, 11 months ago

ah! that was it, thanks!

Michael Eisenwasser
Participant

@eisenwasser

14 years, 10 months ago

Where can I find out what the starting text should be in the custom po file? I downloaded Poedit and figured out how to make a file called buddypress-es_US.po. Now I just want to know what to put in that file!

Any help will be greatly appreciated

John James Jacoby
Keymaster

@johnjamesjacoby

14 years, 10 months ago

@michaeleisenwasser

You will need to scan a directory for strings and compile a list of them. This is already done for you with the included .pot file. Open that file and start translating, then save it as buddypress-es_US.po.

Michael Eisenwasser
Participant

@eisenwasser

14 years, 10 months ago

I already figured it out, but thanks! Just so people know, this does work as expected. Make sure to upload both the mo and po files, and to use the bp-custom.php tip from r-a-y.