Localization Problem: Doesn't Display Translated Words

Question

I'm trying to localize my plugin and with a plugin called CodeStyling Localization, I succeeded to create a .po file. However, the words used in my plugin remain in English although the default language is set to Japanese as defined in wp-configdefine('WPLANG', 'ja');

Other localized plugins are properly translated including, Yet Another Related Posts Plugin and WP Multibyte Patch.

This is a sample plugin I wrote to test plugin localization. I kept it as simple as possible.

wp-content\plugins\localizationsample\localizationsample.php

<?php
/*  
    Plugin Name: Localization Sample Plugin
    Version: 1.1
    Author: Teno
*/

// Localization
add_action('init', 'localizationsample_init');
function localizationsample_init() {
    $loaded = load_plugin_textdomain('localizationsample', false, dirname( plugin_basename( __FILE__ ) ) . '/lang/');
} 

// Add Admin Menu 
add_action('admin_menu','localizationsample_menu');
function localizationsample_menu() { 
    add_options_page(
        'Localization Sample Plugin',   
        'Localization Sample Plugin',       
        'manage_options',       
        __FILE__,               
        'localizationsample_adminpanel'
    );
}
function localizationsample_adminpanel() {
    echo '<div class="wrap"><div id="icon-themes" class="icon32"></div>';
    echo '<h2>' . __('hi!', 'localizationsample') . '</h2>';    // "hi!" should be translated.
    echo '</div></div>';
}
?>

wp-content\plugins\localizationsample\lang\LSample-ja_JP.po

msgid ""
msgstr ""
"Project-Id-Version: Localization Sample Plugin v1.0\n"
"Report-Msgid-Bugs-To: \n"
"POT-Creation-Date: 2012-08-17 20:23+0900\n"
"PO-Revision-Date: 2012-08-17 11:27:39+0000\n"
"Last-Translator: \n"
"Language-Team: \n"
"MIME-Version: 1.0\n"
"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8\n"
"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
"Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=n != 1;\n"
"X-Poedit-Language: \n"
"X-Poedit-Country: \n"
"X-Poedit-SourceCharset: UTF-8\n"
"X-Poedit-KeywordsList: __;_e;__ngettext:1,2;_n:1,2;__ngettext_noop:1,2;_n_noop:1,2;_c,_nc:4c,1,2;_x:1,2c;_ex:1,2c;_nx:4c,1,2;_nx_noop:4c,1,2;\n"
"X-Poedit-Basepath: .\n"
"X-Poedit-Bookmarks: \n"
"X-Poedit-SearchPath-0: Z:/xampp/htdocs/wptest/wp-content/plugins/localizationsample\n"
"X-Textdomain-Support: yes"

#: localizationsample.php:28
#@ LSample
msgid "hi!"
msgstr "やあ！"

Both files are saved as UTF-8 without BOM. What am I doing wrong?

*updated the code but the issue still persists.

Answer 1

First make sure the language file is found. In your development environment (and only there!) add the following code:

$path   = plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) . 'lang';
$loaded = load_plugin_textdomain( 'LSample', false, dirname( $path );

if ( ! $loaded )
{
    print "File not found: $path"; 
    exit;
}

Then … I would use lowercase text domains only. Not sure if that’s a real issue, but there are some cases where WordPress is setting strings to lowercase automatically. Strings not visible to the end user should stay lowercase.

The po file will not be used, you have to create a mo file after translation. Make sure to click the button. :)

Then reload, the strings should be translated now.