Multilingual - how do you do it?

(Birdg) #1

Hi,

 

We currently publish English and Welsh content from Matrix and do this using contexts. However, we have found this a real pain because certain asset types are not contextable (files, forms), there are bugs in Edit+ when using contexts and Design files/Paint Layouts are not really suited to it (paint layouts have a particularly nasty bug where one context will overwrite the other).

 

Also, we are now finding that our authors want Welsh pages to be completely different from the English version in some (but not all) cases - and contexts don't really handle this well. They work best when the alternative context is a direct translation.

 

We are now being asked to add Mandarin and the thought of dealing with 3 contexts keeps me awake at night.

 

How do other people do multiple languages? How many languages are you dealing with? Are the alternative languages direct translations of the English or different? If you don't use contexts, how do you link from one language to the other?

 

Lots of questions! I really hope someone has this cracked so we can learn a better way.

 

Many thanks,

 

Graham

(Talk) #2

One idea would be to use multiple WYSIWYG metadata fields in place of the standard asset contents. One per language, which is paint layout friendly, and keeps everything attached to the same asset. This doesn’t solve your file problems, but I can’t see any other option for that than uploading three versions, and linking to one from each language metadata field. Remember you also need multi lingual metadata fields for other stuff you use in layouts, like page names, descriptions, labels, etc,so you can even section each language out within the schema, and then let the paint layouts do all the work based on conditionals (query strings, variables, logged in, parent site asset if you’re using some linking smarts for each language, etc).

Does that sound feasible for your application? I’m about to embark on 2 large multilingual projects, and this is the path I’ll likely be taking.

(Aleks Bochniak) #3

Might be better to have 3 completely separate sites, but based on the same taxonomy and use related asset metadata to link the alternative language versions together. This solution really depends on how many pages you have?

(Tbaatar) #4

I have done both methods [context / separate] for fairly large websites and i personally think separate solution is the best as you have far more flexibility over customisations and personalisation over content and structure of the website. 

 

Either way languages is a resource hog.

(Birdg) #5

Hi,

Thanks for all the replies. If we did have separate sites, presumably a metadata field would be required for each asset to link to its alternative language version? I can’t imagine an automatic way to do this exists.


For us large means over 10,000 pages. In our case some is translated but not all. However over time we are very likely to increase the amount.


Any further thoughts would be very much appreciated.


Best,



Graham

(Talk) #6

So if you keep a single set of assets, but link them under 3 separate site assets, the metadata can all live on the single asset (broken into three sections, one per language, within the schema). Then, conditionally, based on the parent site asset, your page will be displayed in one of the languages, via the layout calling the relevant metadata fields. You can then auto link to other languages via the layout or designs, but linking to the URL of the other language site asset, and the relative href to the current asset.

 

That way, you're only managing a single set of assets. Remember that site structure will be reflected across all three sites, but you can always conditionally show other stuff too, like varying menu level depth, or a different menu altogether, based on which parent site asset the page is being browsed under.

 

Hope that helps :)