Localization / textdomain is slow and chaotic

Question

My theme has a lot of templates. Most of them contain messages in the usual way:

echo __('This is the message','mytextdomain')

This has several disadvantages. For instance, if I want to change the Read More message I have to browse all files to see if it is there. There's a larger risk of typos and it is more difficult to check for consistency in the messages. So, is there a way to concentrate messages in one place?

Also I wonder about performance. For every page load WP loads the complete textdomain, only to find a translation that is always the same. Especially on the front end this doesn't sound efficient. So, is there a way to have proper localization without repeating the process all the time?

Answer 1

In my opinion you are focusing on a wrong issue in this case.

For instance, if I want to change the Read More message I have to browse all files to see if it is there.

This doesn't indicate localization problem. This indicates templating problem.

What if you want to change markup of Read More of whatever else? Do you have to do this in multiple places as well? Then it's more about how templates are structured and duplication in them.

Not that WordPress is particularly good at that, but still worth a consideration.

Also I wonder about performance. For every page load WP loads the complete textdomain, only to find a translation that is always the same. Especially on the front end this doesn't sound efficient.

You make a typical mistake of wondering instead of measuring.

There are certainly performance implications to localization in WordPress. However core already does plenty of it to load localization for itself.

If your theme doesn't approach or exceed WP core in size of necessary translations then you are probably fine. If you want to be sure — profile performance and get sure. :) Wondering just wastes your time on hypotheticals that might not need to be addressed.

Answer 2

There is an easy way to get around this problem. Store all frontend messages as options of your theme. Let's define an option 'messages':

add_option('messages',array());

Now we must populate this option. Let's define the defaults:

$theme_messages_defaults = array (
    'read-more'         => __('Read more','tekko'),
    'next-page'         => __('Next page','tekko'),
    ... and so on ...
    )

Now, we have to transfer the defaults to the option. We want to do this only at first install, when the translation files have been updated or when the user switches languages. When this test passes run this function:

function run_only_at_install_or_new_version {
    global $theme_messages_defaults;
    var $messages = array();
    foreach ($theme_messages_defaults as $message_key => $message_val) {
        $messages[$message_key] = $theme_messages_defaults[$message_val];
    }
    update_option('messages',$messages);
}

Given that the option is an array, we need a slightly different get_option function:

function mytheme_get_message_option ($message_key) {
    $messages = get_option('messages');
    $message = $messages[$message_key];
    return $message;
}

In your templates replace all your echo statements like this:

mytheme_get_message_option('read-more');

Don't forget you won't need the textdomain on the frontend anymore, so add a condition in your function file:

if (is_admin()) load_theme_textdomain ('mytheme', 'path/to/languages');

Now you have all your messages in one place and are preventing unnecessary translation actions. Actually you have even more possibilities. You can add the messages to your option pages and have your clients change the texts without having to change templates. Hey, if you use mods in stead of options, you can even add them to the theme customizer. Beware that you would have to add an extra condition to run_only_at_install_or_new_version to prevent overriding client messages when the theme is updated.

Note: The above is adapted from a more complex setup I use myself, so there may be some typos. If you're at this stage debugging it shouldn't be a problem.