Language Translation

SurgeMail and user.cgi

SurgeMail supports the translation of it's web interface pages and internal messages via language translation files. These files contain a list of phrases and translations for those phrases in any number of languages. If you require a language which is not currently supported, or not supported completely it is simply a matter of editing the files and adding translations. We would appreciate it if customers would send us any translation files they do significant work on as we can then merge those additions into the default files so that other customers may benefit.

The SurgeMail files are called lang_web.dat and lang_bin.dat; lang_web.dat contains phrases which are found in the web admin and user self management pages (eg. c:\surgemail\web\), lang_bin.dat contains phrases which are found in the SurgeMail binary itself. In addition to these files SurgeMail will locate and use any file matching lang_web*.dat and lang_bin*.dat, this allows you to separate your languages out into files if desired, eg. lang_web_french.dat ...

To start using these files simply place them in the SurgeMail installation folder (eg. c:\surgemail) and restart SurgeMail. After changes to these files you will also need to restart SurgeMail. Any language SurgeMail finds in these files will be listed on the user self management login page. Selecting a language and logging in will store the selected language in a cookie on the users system. This cookie is shared by the WebMail interface, meaning that when the same user goes to the WebMail interface they will see it in the selected language. There are 2 places a user can change the selected language, the first is in the user self management interface, on the details page, the first page they see upon logging in. The next place is in the WebMail interface on the options page.

SurgeWeb webmail interface

The SurgeWeb interface has a separate language translation system, using separate files, though it is very similar. For details please go here. Bear in mind that a few of the SurgeWeb pages use the SurgeMail self management system (user.cgi) to provide features such as Friends, Spam rules and Filtering so the phrases you are trying to translate may need to be translated in either set of files.

An significant feature of the SurgeWeb language customisation system is that it allows for arbitrary customisation of the English language phrases as well as actual translation for non English languages.

If you have any trouble translating any phrase please contact surgemail-support@netwinsite.com for help.