How to seperate static phrases from template files in custom theme?

Question

I am looking for best practise patterns how to separate static phrases (e.g. button labels, status messages) from the actual template files when developing a custom theme? It is not necessary to make such phrases dynamically accessible as real WP content.

My research lead to the topic of internationalisation (http://codex.wordpress.org/I18n_for_WordPress_Developers). However, to me I18n appears a bit too much of an overhead for my purposes.

I am thinking of a separate phrases file which gets included, say, in header.php (or rather functions.php?). There, phrases would be defined and assigned to variables or constants, which could be used as place-holders in template files.

example file phrases.inc.php

define('SEARCH_BUTTON_TEXT', 'Search');
...
define('FILTER_SUCCESS_MESSAGE', 'Your filter results');

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Your research lead you to the correct answer. Internationalization (A.K.A i18n) is best practice and is not as complicated as it may seem. You'll be better off in the long run learning it now.

@Pieter Goosen is 100% correct with his advise in response to your suggestion using variables and constants.

Keep out of global scope (creating globals and constants), it is a really messy and evil place to be. Wordpress has already made a huge mess of this, don't go and dirty it even further. You should avoid creating globals and constants at all costs. As already stated, l18n is a much much better way and also the correct way of doing localization.