One of the issues related with the Joomla! extensions is their upgrade. Languages do not differ from the components, modules, templates or plugins. Now, if you look at the translations marked as accredited by Joomla! you will note that there is no standard of the packages (i.e. some offer all-in-one package, others not), but there is something that is missing for sure. Joomla! 1.5 offers one thing named installation method. This installation method in fact guides Joomla! that the extension is already installed and the idea of the current installation process is to replace the existing files. In the past it was common to have as a second row (after defining the document being XML) it was pretty common to have:
<install version="1.5" client="site" type="language">
Well, now you could have:
<install version="1.5" client="site" type="language" method="upgrade">
At the end you could see the method defined as "upgrade". This simple additional definition in the XML file allows the new files to overwrite the existing translations without the need to deinstall/install the language packs you already have on the web site. Our site will offer its translation packages with this upgrade function built-in.