The manual package release process is no longer recommended and subject to removal. Please make sure your locale is eligible for automated release packages.
A manual package release will not include translations for JavaScript related interface elements like the block editor.
To release your translations manually, you need to manually create a release package from your local WordPress site (http://locale.wordpress.org). Locale Managers have access to do that.
Before you package and build your localized version of WordPress, you should make sure everything is ready.
- Check in all updated files into the current branch directory via SVN under i18n.svn.wordpress.org/ (Access to SVN may need to be requested via make.wordpress.org/polyglots; it’s handled separately and not automatically connected to the roles “Locale Manager” or “General Translation Editor”).
- The release package consists of four different sub-projects that all need to be translated to 100%: WordPress, Countries & Cities, Administration, and Network Admin. Make sure all the strings are translated.
- In your SVN directory, copy the current branch directory and create a new tag directory under
locale/tags/X.X.X
Got it all ready? Let’s package WordPress!
Packaging Process – Step by step guide
First, you’ll need to obtain the revision number of the corresponding WordPress package. Releases are available in the list of tags on core Trac or on this page in the “Release Revisions” section. This list does not include pre-releases including betas and release candidates. For those, you will need to look for a reference to the version “bump” in the build.trac.wordpress.org revision log.
Once you have the revision number of the version you’ll be packaging, it’s time to build the actual package. To do that, follow these steps:
- Log in as a General Translation Editor to your local WordPress site (locale.wordpress.org)
- Go to “Tools → Release Packages”.
- Scroll down to “Build New Package” section.
- For “Where should we get your translations from”, select “translate.wordpress.org” if you want to use those current translations. If you’ve checked in translated message files in svn, select “Subversion”.
- For “Locale branch for dist files”, select the location of your translated files under https://i18n.svn.wordpress.org/locale/.
- For “WordPress Branch”, select the corresponding original branch.
- For “WordPress revision”, select the revision number you found at the beginning.
- “WordPress Version” will be used as the package name (e.g. 3.9, 3.9-beta3, 3.9-RC1).
- Click the “Build Package” button.
Important: Before releasing the package to the public, download the zip or tar.gz file from the links at the top of the page and test it.
Releasing New Versions
After building a new package, you can share the download URL among your translation team for testing. You can find the URLs under the “Links” column on the Translations for page, in .zip or .tar.gz format.
If testing goes well and you’re ready to release the final version to the public, simply click the version’s “Release” link under the “Action” column. This will mark the official release of that version. Users will be prompted for an upgrade of their language package on their dashboard, and download information on your locale site will be updated.
Release Revisions
Revisions numbers must be taken from build.trac.wordpress.org.
View the current list of available tags for each release here and use the number in the “Rev” column as the revision number.
