10. Menus

As of Localizer 3.x, the method for translating a menu item has changed. Whereas in Localizer 1.x, the translation was done with a pulldown list when the menu item was created, in Localizer 3.x the menu item is treated as any other translatable string, and is translated using the Localizer strings translation function.

Creating a multilingual menu item is done as follows:

1. First, make sure the UI of your site is being displayed in the language that you will typically use for doing administration. The reason for this is that a new menu item will only show up in the Administer > Site building > Menus in the language you first enter, and the language of the "current" UI is assumed to be the language of the menu item by default.
2. Create a new menu item by the usual procedure by going to Administer > Site building > Menus and clicking add item either under Primary links or Navigation as appropriate.



3. Type in the Title and other fields as appropriate and click Submit.
4. Find your new menu item in the list to be sure it was created. In the next step we will need to search for the exact menu name. The easiest way to do this is highlight the menu item with your cursor and copy the text.



5. Now go to Administer > Content management > Localizer strings translation, and click the Search link at the top of the page.



6. In the box labeled Translation:, paste the menu item text. Make sure that none of your search criteria would keep the text from being found (or just turn off all selections and set the language selection to All), and then click Search.



7. This should find the menu item, and if you open the collapsed sections under the found text, the other available languages should appear. Do your translation(s) in the boxes provided (i.e. overwrite the original language text with the new language text) and then click Save.

This completes the procedure. Go to a page with the new menu item and switch the UI to make sure that the translation has taken effect.

One thing to note is that the menu item will not change language with the UI language for certain administration pages, such as Administer > Site building > Menus.