Installing & managing WordPress language packs using WP-CLI

The WordPress active language is fairly easy to maintain, and here is a guide on managing language packs using the WP-CLI installed on all of our servers.

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Introduction to installing WordPress language packs using WordPress command line interface (WP-CLI)

In today’s world, where everything is almost always multilingual, we need to consider doing the same for the websites that we own or manage.

Since almost 37% of all the world’s websites run on the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) and Nexcess is one of the premier global providers in the Managed WordPress industry, here is a guide on managing language packs using the WordPress Command Line Tool (WP-CLI) that is installed on all of our servers.

Requirements:

Nexcess account
Any Nexcess Plan that supports the WordPress CMS
Secure Shell (SSH) access

Your SSH access can be obtained by following this guidance in the Locating your SSH/SFTP Credentials for your Nexcess Cloud Account article.

Everything else is already installed and should be running as expected in the following parts of the tutorial.

Managing WordPress languages in 3 areas: core, themes, & plugins

WordPress Core Language: The Admin Panel and the general installation of the WordPress supports most of the world’s languages.
WordPress Theme Language: Each theme can have different languages that depend on the theme developers.
WordPress Plugin Language: Each plugin can have different languages that depend on the plugin developers.

Each of those areas 1-3 above has their respective commands that can be used to download, activate, and deactivate languages.

Managing the WordPress core language using WP-CLI

In this use case, we will be using the following temporary domain to show you how it works:

Domain: 893f3aa5f1.nxcli.net
WordPress Installation Path: /home/$username/$domain/html
Our Path: /home/adea7c0e/893f3aa5f1.nxcli.net/html

Navigate to the path using the following command:

cd /home/adea7c0e/893f3aa5f1.nxcli.net/html

To see the available SUBCOMMANDS that can be executed on WordPress core regarding languages, we can use the following command:

wp language core —help

The above command will generate a list with available SUBCOMMANDS, some examples, and additional parameters that can be used with the command:

SYNOPSIS

wp language core

SUBCOMMANDS

activate Activates a given language.
install Installs a given language.
is-installed Checks if a given language is installed.
list Lists all available languages.
uninstall Uninstalls a given language.
update Updates installed languages for core.

EXAMPLES

# Install the Dutch core language pack.
$ wp language core install nl_NL
Success: Language installed.

# Activate the Dutch core language pack.
$ wp language core activate nl_NL
Success: Language activated.

# Uninstall the Dutch core language pack.
$ wp language core uninstall nl_NL
Success: Language uninstalled.

# List installed core language packages.
$ wp language core list –status=installed
+———-+————–+————-+———–+———–+———————+
| language | english_name | native_name | status | update | updated |
+———-+————–+————-+———–+———–+———————+
| nl_NL | Dutch | Nederlands | installed | available | 2016-05-13 08:12:50 |
+———-+————–+————-+———–+———–+———————+

The following command shows all the available languages for the core installation that are available:

wp language core list

To check which language is installed on our site for the WordPress core we can use the following command:

We can see that the additional language of en_GB English (UK) is installed from the above command, but that does not mean it is the active language by the site since WordPress comes preinstalled with the language of en_US