Translating

SourceBans++ ships with English as the default. Translating into another language has two halves: the web panel (theme-based) and the in-game plugin (SourceMod’s standard .phrases.txt files).

Web panel

The web panel’s UI strings live inside the active theme’s templates, not in a separate translation file. To translate the panel, you make a copy of the default theme, swap the English copy for your translations, and select your new theme in the panel’s settings.

1. Copy the default theme. Navigate to themes/ under your SourceBans++ web install, copy the default/ folder, and rename the copy to something distinctive (e.g. german, default-fr).

2. Edit theme.conf.php in your new theme. Update the metadata so the panel’s theme picker displays your theme correctly. The shipped default theme uses single-quoted string literals; double quotes work too. Use plain define('key', 'value'); lines — the picker regex-reads the file without executing it, so concatenation and other PHP expressions are not reflected on the Settings → Themes cards (the JSON theme-preview API does execute the manifest).

   <?php
   define('theme_name', 'SourceBans++ Deutsch');
   define('theme_author', 'Your name');
   define('theme_version', '1.0.0');
   define('theme_link', 'https://your-site.example.com');
   define('theme_screenshot', 'screenshot.jpg');

   Leave theme_link empty if you have no homepage; use only the screenshot filename (not a path) — it must live in your theme directory next to the templates.

3. Translate each .tpl file. Open the .tpl files in your theme directory and replace the English copy with your translation. Don’t touch the parts wrapped in {...}. Those are template variables Smarty fills in at render time.

4. Activate your theme. Sign in as an admin with Web settings permission, navigate to Admin Panel → Settings → Themes, and pick your new theme.

Caution

SourceBans++ uses Smarty 5 under the hood, which dropped the {php} tag. If you find a {php} block in an old fork theme, replace it with {load_template} or move the logic into a PHP helper. The panel refuses to render templates that still contain {php}.

SourceMod plugin

The plugin uses SourceMod’s standard translation files (per-plugin .phrases.txt under addons/sourcemod/translations/).

1. Open SourceMod’s translations/ directory on your game server.

2. The plugin translation files are:

   • sbpp_main.phrases.txt
   • sbpp_comms.phrases.txt
   • sbpp_sleuth.phrases.txt
   • sbpp_report.phrases.txt
   • sbpp_checker.phrases.txt

3. Each file has a Phrases block with named entries:

   "MyPhrase"
   {
       "en"     "Hello, {1}"
       "#format"  "{1:s}"
   }

   Add a line for your language using the two-letter language code:

   "MyPhrase"
   {
       "en"     "Hello, {1}"
       "fr"     "Bonjour, {1}"
       "#format"  "{1:s}"
   }

   • Keep the {1}, {2}, etc. placeholders in the same positions. They’re how SourceMod injects player names, durations, and so on.
   • If #format is present, follow its formatter spec (see SourceMod’s Translations docs).

4. Reload the map (or restart the server) so SourceMod reloads its translation cache.

Each connecting player gets phrases in their Steam client’s language. If their language has no translation entry, SourceMod falls back to English.

Contributing translations back

We always welcome translation PRs against sbpp/sourcebans-pp, for both panel theme translations and plugin phrase translations.

For the panel, the practical path is to keep the default theme’s structure and only swap the visible text, so the PR is a clean diff. For the plugin, add your language entries inside the existing phrase blocks.