By AndyCanfield on

I have a prototype site working in English. I have installed modules 'variable' and 'i18n'. How do I add Chinese? For example, the first menu item is "Home"; how do I get it to appear as "首頁"?

* In Administration > Configuration > Regional and language >
There are two languages defined; English (the default) and Traditional Chinese. Both are (now) enabled.

* In Administration > Structure > Blocks
I have enabled "Language switcher (User interface text)" into top first column and set the block title to "Language Switcher". But it never shows up anywhere on my site!

* In Administration > Content
every page shows as "English" which cannot be changed.

* In Administration > Content > Add Content > Basic Page
there is nothing to allow me to set the language of the new page.

I have done multi-lingual PHP sites before; in these I have a file defining English Strings and another file with Thai Strings and another file with Lao Strings. But it seems as if Drupal doesn't translate strings, it requires separate pages for each language and separate blocks for each language. But I can't even get the Language Switcher to appear!

⋅ Categories: Drupal 7.x

Comments

AndyCanfield’s picture

AndyCanfield commented

Well, nobody responded. I found http://drupal.org/project/l10n_install and had to start over from scratch but that alternate core helps a lot. The standard Drupal strings now come out in Chinese but my own text is stuck in English. Maybe someday I'll post another reply and explain how; watch this space. But don't hold your breath.

AndyCanfield’s picture

AndyCanfield commented

I installed variable-7.x-1.0-beta3.tar.gz and i18n-7.x-1.0-beta4.tar.gz and have made progress. I can translate menu entries. But I have one menu entry "Welcome" which does not appear in the translate interface. I don't know why.

Watch out - every block has a Publication option which defaults to not allowing translation, which is why the translate interface sees no blocks. You have to change each block to translatable, then it shows up.

Block Body can only be translated if it's plain text. The workaround for HTML is to declare your old block English only, and create a new HTML block with Chinese contents and set that block as Chinese only. Put them on the same place in Structure and one or the other will appear.

Still can't figure out how to translate page titles; still can't translate the site slogan. Administration >> Content has a table of pages, and the Language column always shows "English". No known way to set it or change it.

AndyCanfield’s picture

AndyCanfield commented

I installed the Zen theme. My first sub-theme is named "may" because this month is May and it may work.

Apparently that spurious "Welcome" item was a breadcrumb; in Zen/May I turned breadcrumbs off and it's gone.

AndyCanfield’s picture

AndyCanfield commented

(1) I can not translate page contents. I can translate block contents, but not page contents. Page contents do not show up on the Translate interface under any text catagory. So I simply remove all contents from all pages and replace them with blocks. But page contents are handled specially for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) so I am losing out there.

(2) I can not translate the site slogan. It does not show up on the Translate interface under any text category.

(3) All pages are marked as "English", except for one which I hacked with SQL to be Chinese. Does page language mean anything? If so, how do I set it?

AndyCanfield’s picture

AndyCanfield commented

I have finally been able to translate site_slogan. My 'may' theme is based on zen, and I copied zen/template/page.tpl.php to /may/template/page.tpl.php and inserted this code at the front:

	// Perform an unsupported translation
	switch ( $GLOBALS[ 'language']->language )
	{
	case 'zh-hant':
		$site_slogan = "這件禮物的好地";
		break;
	// other languages go here; 'en' and default are the same
	case "en":
	default:
		$site_slogan = "The gift of a good land";
		break;
	}

Dirty - oh so dirty! - but it works.

Probably, using the same trick, I can translate site_name, page titles, all kinds of stuff. Nasty nasty!

AndyCanfield’s picture

AndyCanfield commented

By using my own html.tpl.php I can capture the page title before it goes to the browser, and so translate the page name and site name into Chinese.

I still can not translate "Page Body". Drupal does not seem to offer any way to translate it, I can't find it in the global variables when html.tpl.php or page.tpl.php are called. So all of my pages leave Page Body empty; I can translate blocks.

One remaining frustration is that the language switcher allows you to change languages on the system pages - Welcome, Contact Us, and Login - but on none of the pages that I created. I don't know why. The database 'nodes' table declare every page to be language 'en', which does not explain why you can switch to Chinese on the Welcome page.

Drupal is HORRIBLY UNDERDOCUMENTED regarding multiple languages. If drupal.org ever wants to break into the global market, someone who has done a multi-lingual site will have to write down exactly how it's done. There is currently documentation for this bit and that bit and not for the other bit and nothing tying all this together.

This series of postings is my contribution.

ling11505’s picture

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BigMike’s picture

BigMike commented

SPAM

BigMike’s picture

BigMike commented

AndyCanfield,

Thanks for keeping this thread updated with your progress. I've had many a thread where I was the only one posting but I just keep updating it.

Your well written replies have really helped me out a lot. I still have much to do and this thread has been a huge help!

Thank you very much!
Mike

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BigMike’s picture

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BigMike’s picture

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