Now that we have internationalized our code and prepared it for localization using the __()
family of functions, it's time to create a POT file. POT stands for "portable object template", and the .pot
file will store all of your translatable messages in one place. The POT file is what translators will typically use to translate your messages into a specific language and locale. It is called a template because it contains message IDs
. You may have thought that you were typing actual messages into your plugin, but take a moment to think of them as IDs. We are all familiar with this type of message ID—we see them all the time in error codes. For example, the copy machine might display "Error Code 7", or you may get a 404 message when you try to visit a web page that no longer exists. Later we translate that code or ID into a message we understand, like "Toner Low" or "Page not Found", but the ID itself is language agnostic.
In other words, you could have written your entire...