Add Language in SMF (Simple Machines Forum)

Posted on March 16th, 2016

SMF stands for Simple Machines Forum. It is a forum software in which people can register and talk about a specific topic in detail. Just like a message board, anyone with access can participate in the discussions going on in the Forum. But it is not like a message board. It is because in the message board, the discussions are unorganized and messages are small and frequent. However, In a Forum, people discuss in the organized threads. And the messages/comments are detailed and not too frequent.

The SMF was built to work on the servers with low resources. But it provides many useful features that might save you hours. A forum can target a group of people with similar interest, also, a forum can be regional and in the local language.

In SMF, you can add additional languages to support the forum users. You can add many popular languages in your SMF forum. In this tutorial, we will see how to add a language to your SMF.

Add Language in SMF

First of all, login to your SMF admin panel. Yes, you must have admin access in order to perform this action. Once you are in, click on the Admin section given in the main navigation bar just like highlighted in the following image.

It will take you to a new page in which you will find a menu below the main navigation bar. Hover over the Configuration option given in that menu to see a drop-down in which the Languages option is present. Click on that option. To make this easier to understand, refer to the following screenshot.

In the Languages section, click on the Add language option.

Now, Enter the name of the language you want to add to your SMF. And then click on the Search button given at the bottom-right corner of the page just like the following screenshot.

It will find the language you want to add from the SMF library. From the list, click on the Install button corresponding to the language you want to install. For reference, see the following screenshot.

After the successful installation of the language, it will show you the success message.

Now, If you want to set the language to default, click on the Edit languages option on the same page. It will show you the list of available languages in your SMF along with the option to set any language as default. Click on the Radio button given under the Default column corresponding to the language you want to set.

So, this is how you can add a new language in your Simple machines forum. You can also create multiple boards in your SMF, follow our guide to learn how to create a new forum in SMF. If you are stuck at any point in this tutorial, please let us know in the comment section given below, we are happy to help!