Last updated September 25, 2008. Created by Jose Reyero on April 5, 2007.
Edited by add1sun, Ian Ward. Log in to edit this page.
Follow the steps below to set up a basic multilingual site with the most common options selected.
Installing and Enabling the i18n Package
- Download and install the package
- Enable the following modules: locale, internationalization, and translation
- Set up your basic modules
- Define your languages
These are the basic modules you need to enable to have a multilingual site:
Figure 1: Modules in i18n package
Once the modules are enabled, visit the module settings page and go to Administer>Site Configuration>Multilingual system
Figure 2: Basic multilingual settings
When the internationalization module is enabled, there are two additional options in the language management page: a text field to name the native language name and a check box to mark the language as LTR (left to right). This latter option has no further effect unless it is handled properly by the theme.
Figure 3: Language set up
Enabling Multilingual Content
- Enable the language block
- Enable multilingual support for specific content types
Now you have to enable the content types you want to be in multiple languages. This can be done on Administer>Content>Content types for each content type. A new option to enable/disable multilingual support will appear at the bottom of the settings page.
Figure 4: Enable content types to be multilingual
New! There's a new option for content types called extended language support. It will allow you to set all defined languages - not only enabled ones - for selected content types. With this feature enabled, it is possible to have a site in a few languages, which will be the ones enabled, showing in the languages block and used for localization, while allowing a larger number of languages for some content types.
Comments
Regions go missing
I have added some extra regions in my some of my templates.
However, once I activate the Internationalization modules these regions stop to show up
It seems that the changed URL has something to do with it.
For example, if this was the URL before: www.mysite.com/mypage
Internationalization would then change the link to this page to www.mysite.com/en/mypage (for english). On this changed URL my custom region is gone.
Odd thing if I remove the /en/ bit from URL ie just by backspacing it out in the browsers address field - the region shows up again, so it is not the module per se that has an effect
Apparently it is that little injected '/en/' makes the page disconnect from to the region.
Why does this happen, and how do I remedy it?
Peter Symes
Editor
X-Ray International Dive Magazine
Peter Symes
Editor
X-Ray International Dive Magazine
Similar Problem
In my theme, I make heavy use of page-[name].tpl.php files. Now, I need to create another copy of the files for every language I'm using: page-[language code]-[name].tpl.php. This will be a nightmare. Is there any other solution?
--EDIT. I found the solution.
In template.php, I needed to strip the current language out of alias so that it would resolve the correct page. I know this won't solve your problem, but maybe it will help somebody.
function theme_preprocess_page(&$vars) {
//use template alias
if (module_exists('path')) {
$alias = drupal_get_path_alias(str_replace('/edit','',$_GET['q']));
$alias = str_replace(i18n_get_lang().'/', '', $alias);
if ($alias != $_GET['q']) {
$suggestions = array();
$template_filename = 'page';
foreach (explode('/', $alias) as $path_part) {
$template_filename = $template_filename . '-' . $path_part;
$suggestions[] = $template_filename;
}
}
$vars['template_files'] = $suggestions;
}
}