Let's get technical with translations :)

    //GENEARAL
    define('dt_ReadMore','Read More »');
    define('dt_Permalink','Permalink to ');    

Have you utilized WordPress’ standard i18n techniques?

Can’t tell if this is what you’re looking for or if you’re trying to do something beyond these functions

__($dt_ReadMore,'duotive');

Just tested the following on a test theme and I got the output successfully:

<?php define('dt_ReadMore',__('Read More &#187;', 'duotive'));
echo dt_ReadMore; ?>

Now since the constant is still accepting the value and echoing correctly, I hope the gettext will parse __() too.

Now see that is the problem? I want instead of the text to have a php string that i get from the backend.

I guess I’m probably missing something, but I thought the issue was just that if $dt_ReadMore doesn’t have a translation, it’ll just spit back out the value of $dt_ReadMore. So couldn’t you do something like this?

//Define default
define( 'dt_ReadMore', 'Read More »' );

//Retrive special value from DB (with 'dt_ReadMore' key), or set to default
$dt_ReadMoreText = get_option('dt_ReadMore', dt_ReadMore);

$readMoreText = __($dt_ReadMoreText, 'duotive');

Of course, this code could be condensed, or made into a function of its own. But at this point I think we have the following result:

1. If no translation exists, and no ‘special value’ is set, the default is returned.

2. If a translation exists, and no ‘special value’ is set, the translation is returned.

3. If a ‘special value’ is set, it is returned (unless there is a translation for the special value)

I think that would allow users to change individual words but still make use of translations?

Yes this is true, excerpt for the 3rd conclusion, witch in my opinion cannot be true, because when scanning with POEdit you cannot have the strings from the database. This was one of my options, if onone has any better ideas i will go with this. Thanks man

I’ve always used this:

$myString = sprintf (  __('Use %s to include the text.', THEME_NAME),  $theTerm );

echo $myString;

When translating they must keep the “%s” in the translation but it works. If I remember correctly, POEdit recognizes strings with “%s” and knows they’re special, but I could be mixing that up with something else.

Parallelus said
I’ve always used this:

$myString = sprintf (  __('Use %s to include the text.', THEME_NAME),  $theTerm );

echo $myString;

When translating they must keep the “%s” in the translation but it works. If I remember correctly, POEdit recognizes strings with “%s” and knows they’re special, but I could be mixing that up with something else.

define( 'dt_ReadMore', sprintf ( __('Read More »', 'duotive'), get_option('dt_ReadMore') ) );

duotive said

Parallelus said
I’ve always used this:

$myString = sprintf (  __('Use %s to include the text.', THEME_NAME),  $theTerm );

echo $myString;

When translating they must keep the “%s” in the translation but it works. If I remember correctly, POEdit recognizes strings with “%s” and knows they’re special, but I could be mixing that up with something else.

Thanks so this is tested and it works.. good . Please correct me if i am wrong:

define( 'dt_ReadMore', sprintf ( __('Read More »', 'duotive'), get_option('dt_ReadMore') ) );

I do not know regex and sprintf functions

sprintf is a formatter – basically it replaces variables in a preformatted string. So without a %s or %d or the like in the first argument, I don’t think it’s doing anything.

See http://php.net/manual/en/function.sprintf.php

I was going to suggest this earlier, but I think the problem I think is that you’re not replacing part of a string, but the whole thing. I think the sprintf i18n method is intended to be used when a string needs to be translated, but a part of that string varies, for example, a number. It basically allows you to translate a string, then replace the variable. In your case, the entire string is a variable, so I don’t think this does anything for you (you need to pass something to the translation function).