Flexible language variables

The "standard" way to store language variables in Kirby is to define an array of language variables in the language file itself, e.g. /site/languages/de.php.

/site/languages/de.php

<?php

return [
  'code' => 'de',
  'default' => false,
  'direction' => 'ltr',
  'locale' => 'de_DE',
  'name' => 'Deutsch',
  'translations' => [
    'change' => 'Ändern',
    'confirm' => 'OK',
    'copy' => 'Kopieren',
    'create' => 'Erstellen'
  ]
];

This is fine if you only need a small set of fixed variables. If this is not flexible enough for your use case, you can replace the array of key/value pairs with a link to a file or a function that returns an array.

For example, if you want to store your variables in a yaml file instead, you can read the file into an array:

/site/languages/de.php

<?php

return [
  'code' => 'de',
  'default' => false,
  'direction' => 'ltr',
  'locale' => 'de_DE',
  'name' => 'Deutsch',
  'translations' => Yaml::decode(F::read(kirby()->root('languages').'/vars/de.yml'))
];

And then in /vars/de.yml, define your variables:

/site/languages/vars/de.yml

change: Ändern
confirm: OK
copy: Kopieren
create: Erstellen

Or, you can use a function that returns the variables array:

/site/languages/de.php

<?php

return [
  'code' => 'de',
  'default' => false,
  'direction' => 'ltr',
  'locale' => 'de_DE',
  'name' => 'Deutsch',
  'translations' => getVariables('de')
];

And in a plugin, define a function that returns your variables:

/site/plugins/variables/index.php

function getVariables($lang = null) {
   /* here you can fetch your variables from anywhere:
   ** a spreadsheet, a .csv file, or
   ** from a structure field that you can edit in the Panel
   */
   $translations = [];
   return $translations;
}

As you can see, you can get pretty flexible with this to make it work with the requirements of your multi-language project.