WPML Compatible WordPress Themes Have Arrived!

I’m happy to announce that we are currently updating all of our Genesis child themes to be WPML compatible. This means we are bringing more goodness to our international customers.

Over the summer we went through the process of collaborating with WPML (The WordPress Multilingual Plugin) on a sample theme. The WPML team installed, tested, and certified one of our existing themes.

After this first theme was wrapped up and certified as WPML compatible, we began including these same changes in our future themes as well as backtracking to update our existing themes with the same features.

We’re doing our best to update the themes are quickly as possible and you’ll see a complete list of WPML compatible themes in our theme store.

Never heard of WPML? Let me give you a quick overview.

What is WPML?

WPML is a popular WordPress plugin used for creating multilingual websites. The WPML plugin is in use by over 400,000 site owners throughout the world.

WPML provides WordPress users will the ability to translate and publish content in different languages.

Some plugin highlights include:

• Advanced features for translation management
• An interface for professional content translation
• Ability to run a multilingual website with a single WordPress installation
• Options to choose from one of 40 different languages to get started
• Ability to add your own language variations like Canadian French (well known by those of us in Michigan)
• Present content in different language in the same domain, sub-domains, or in completely different domains
• Use the API to integrate with other plugins and translation systems

While most of WPML customers come from Europe, North America, Asia and South America, their most popular languages for usage are English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Japanese and Portuguese. All in all, there are over 100 countries and languages used in the plugin.

What Makes a WordPress Theme WPML Compatible?

A compatible WPML theme will go beyond .mo or .po files. A WPML compatible theme will include an XML language configuration file that is added to the theme’s root directory. This will allow end-users to run multilingual WordPress sites without having to add lots of configuration and coding changes.

A WPML compatible theme also includes several components that are required for the theme to work with WPML. These include the essential WPML components, which will allow you to fully translate your website, including WPML core, WPML String Translation and WPML Translation Management.

Does that feel like a whole lot of geek talk? Yep, it does to me too.

In regular people terms, using WPML with a compatible theme will allow you to easily translate your WordPress theme, pages, posts, menus using the WPML plugin.

What WSM Themes Are Already WPML Compliant?

The WPML team manually reviews each submitted theme and certifies them on a case-by-case basis. This does not happen immediately so we are currently have multiple themes in their queue waiting for approval.

Our stock themes that are already flagged for WPML compliant:

• Caroline – Our bbPress and BuddyPress theme
• Fernando – Our LearnDash theme
• Jessica – Our e-Commerce theme
• Deborah – Our PTA theme
• Patricia – Our non-profit theme
• Lisa Marie – Our salon theme
• Elbe Blake – Our marketing theme

Please keep in mind that even if a WSM theme isn’t on the list above, it doesn’t mean that it won’t be work with multiple languages. It just means that the above themes have been submitted to WPML for review and certification.

We are keeping a list of these themes in our store via the WPML Compatible product tag.

We are also keeping a list of all of our themes that are i18n ready. These translation ready themes come with a .pot file that can be used to create .mo and .po files for your language.

Moving Forward With WPML

All our new stock WordPress themes will be WPML compatible and i18n ready. Keep an eye out for blog updates, because we have two themes in development right now that will be released before the end of 2015.

If you are a small business or enterprise that needs a custom theme translated, we can handle this too. Just submit an inquiry and we’ll be happy to jump on a call and discuss your project in depth.