The last part of my Google Summer of Code project was the addition of initial database seed localisation. This feature allows non-English installs to get the proper (translated) database data right from the start.

By default, CiviCRM ships with two databases to choose from. The first database is a filled with some semi-random data (random individual contacts, sample organisations, reports, events, etc.), which lets the user get a feeling what using CiviCRM looks like; the second is a ‘clean’ database with ‘sensible defaults’ – things that a given install should (or at least might want to) alter, but there’s a chance most installs share: individual prefixes (like Mr, Ms), communication methods (phone, email, SMS, etc.), IM protocols or even available contact genders.

Up until today, when one installed CiviCRM one didn’t have much choice: both databases were using English strings for all of the stuff, and if one wanted to use CiviCRM in any other language they had to meticulously go through all of the config screens and alter the English default strings to their preferred language’s counterparts. I’m happy to announce that this is no longer the case – while we stick to English-based sample database, the ‘clean’ seed database generator creates a per-language seed database, and from CiviCRM 3.0.alpha2 (to be released later this week) on these databases are offered in the installer – so if a given localisation is advanced enough, there’s very little to change after installing a given localised seed database.