Hello François
I have never used this type of document and don't really know what to do. Are the line beginning with a "+" to add to my existing files or on the contrary, are they to be commented out.
The file attached is a patch file: on a linux/unix box (on windows, too, if you install the tools needed), you can apply it by going into the includes folder, and typing this:
patch < detectlang.diff
this will apply all changes to the appropriate files. Note that the patch was created for CVS HEAD, i.e. MediaWiki 1.6 - but you can try it on 1.5 also, it will proably work (if not, the patch program will return an error message).
On the french wikipedia (I assume you are/speak french?), I found this link for some explanations about patches: http://www.labo-linux.org/index.php?page=lumieres&id=345. I don't speak french, so I don't know if it's any good.
You can also apply the patch by hand: remove lines that start with "-", add lines that start with "+". Everything else is just for orientation. For a simple patch like this one, that may work.
In any case, please note that this patch is expermimental. No Guaranties...
Another thing, as you seem to know a lot about the inside of the language files in mediawiki. I've seen somewhere an instruction "loadfromdatabase" or something, that I should set to false in localsetting.php to easily enable the changing of the interface language. Do you know what that could be ?
Well, my inside knowled of MediaWiki is patchwork - I know a bit about some parts, and nothing about others. I belive setting loadfromdatabase to false will disable support for custom messages via the MediaWiki namespace, i.e. all messages would come from the language files and would not be changable through the web interface. I don't think that would help you much. But I may be completely wrong on both issues (what it does and if it would help you).
Regards, -- Daniel
PS: maybe join the IRC channel #mediawiki on freenode.net and ask there... many developers hang out there, including me.
Thank you very much Daniel, your answer clarified a lot about all what happens behind the scene, in the obscure developper territory. I'll try to find how to set this programm you talked about. Nevertheless, as I've already hacked most of the mediawiki files for my personla use (allow html and even xml everywhere; captcha protection; not use "pre" for space at line beginning) I'm not sure any automatic programm could apply anything. So I'll try it by hand. At least it'll give me the opportunity to read it all and try to understand what happens.
I've just finished my unicode script (the reencode part is from me). http://www.fxparlant.net/Unicode_Script Ach, Sprache!
Thank you again, and if I ever find again this way of not loading messages from database and choose the visitors language instead, I'll let you know.
François
mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org