Hi,

Drupal is the king of open-source CMS and i18n is definitely the jewel in it's crown.

The way that the language-switcher and translation synchronization works right now, absolutely rocks, especially when content laguage is set as being dependent on interface language. It neatly divides the site into various language sections, BUT this can also presents certain problems for sites like mine. From my google analytics I can tell that the people are mostly visiting the default language section of the site, and don't bother changing the language. As a result, the other 2 language sections of the site are virtually dead.

What if you've got a user who wants to keep his interface in one language, but at the same time wants to view news in several languages simultaneously all in one place (but not necessarily all enabled languages). These days its pretty common to have a person who wishes to keep his interface in his mother tongue, but can also read news in 3 other languages. For example the interface could be 3 optional languages (choose one) and the content could be in 8 languages (he can choose more than one)

So, here's my proposal as to how to make i18n even better and compliant with the evolving Web standards: Keep the existing language switcher and synchronization functionalities of i18n, but also let the users (including anonymous) decide their interface language AS WELL AS the languages of content. All sites that want to attract multilingual crowds, who would be interested in multilingual content, are already doing this. The best examples are www.Reddit.com and www.YouTube.com

So, this feature request is to allow the user (including the anonymous user) to choose his interface language (radio button - 1 choice allowed), AS WELL AS to choose his content language separately (checkboxes - more than 1 choice allowed).

To see how this is done, have a look at www.reddit.com

Comments

jose reyero’s picture

jose reyero commented
Version: 5.x-2.4 » master
Component: Compatibility » User interface

Yes, I think this feature makes a lot of sense. However, no more new features for 5.x, maybe for 6.x

drupalina’s picture

drupalina commented

An additional thought:
when such a modus operandi is chosen, then Language Switcher and Translations blocks with individual flags will become obsolete. In that case I propose an additional block with a link "Customize Languages" (or with a single image of all available language flags), which, once clicked will open up a nice Lightbox2 will the selection of Intercace Langauage on one hand and Content Languaguages on the other. Have a look at how www.reddit.com is doing it.

Alternatively, such a link would expand the header with all the available langauge choices in a way that YouTube or BBC allows you to customize.

But the question is how will each individual selection be remembered for Authenticated users and Anonymous users. So that's also another thing to think about.

Cheers

jose reyero’s picture

jose reyero commented
Version: master » 6.x-1.x-dev
drupalina’s picture

drupalina commented

Hi,
Does this mean that this feature is now available for testing in 6x-1x-dev ???

jose reyero’s picture

jose reyero commented

Nope, this just means I'm reorganizing the issue tracker...

nedjo’s picture

nedjo
he/him/his
Primary language English
commented
Status: Active » Closed (duplicate)
Issue tags: +language, +content language, +interface language, +i18n

Good suggestions. This is probably best addressed in Drupal core, so marking this a duplicate. See this core issue:

#282178: Language negotiation overhaul

and also this one:

#282191: TF #1: Allow different interface language for the same path.

drupalina’s picture

drupalina commented
Status: Closed (duplicate) » Active

Thanks Nedjo,
I have read both threads and commented on them here http://drupal.org/node/282178#comment-1194153 and here http://drupal.org/node/282191#comment-1194067

The first thread is pretty muddled up, there is a very intense discussion going there relating to Drupal core in 7x and it seems to me, it has little to do with my feature request here.

The second thread seems to be more focused around the concept of separation of Conen Language from Interface Language and that's it. While my feature request is very specific: a new configuration option for the admins inside the i18n for multilingual sites that do not rely on content translation workflow or content syncronzation.

My basic idea is to come up with a simple solution for multilingual sites that have multilingual content coming in from a VERY LARGE (and mostly, multilingual) community and at a very fast pace, to an extent that it can become practically unmanageable to translate content or even syncronise translations. Therefore, allowing end-users to select their prefered content languages (as we see on www.Reddit.com) could be a simple and neat solution.

I think i18n module as it is right now can easily do this in 5x and 6x, because it already has an option to separate the content language from the interface language. All that I'm asking is for a new option to allow end-users to select the content languages as they like. That's all...

nedjo’s picture

nedjo
he/him/his
Primary language English
commented

@drupalina:

I think you're right and that at least some of this could be done in contrib in D6. The way that i18n implements content language filtering however doesn't easily lend itself to allowing users to select which languages they see.

Have you looked at these other modules?

http://drupal.org/project/select_translation
http://drupal.org/project/active_translation

This feature request might be easier to implement in the select translation module--though then it will apply only to Views and not to other node listings.

My own feeling is that the query rewriting that i18n does is already way too complicated and error prone. I prefer a Views-based solution, since it doesn't have the numerous potential breakages that come with rewriting all queries on a site.

jose reyero’s picture

jose reyero commented
Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

No plans to add this feature in i18n atm.

If someone wants this, you better work on Drupal core issue tracker.

drupalina’s picture

drupalina commented
Status: Closed (won't fix) » Active

Sorry, I'm going to re-open it again as I'm noticing that many drupallers are longing for something like this, and plus I had a potentially easy solution.

The solution could be really simple:
what if there was just a block with check-boxes of languages to select the content language preferences, and a "Go" or "Save" button. So if content exists in 5 languages and a user speaks 2 of those, then he can tick 2 of those languages, and then i18n sifter could simply sift through the content in that way...
a simple SIFTER block.
And this simple solution could work perfectly with the fact that i18n module already allows for interface language to be independent of content language. So in effect, user's interface could stay in English, but the content that he would see would be in English and Spanish, for example, all the content in all other languages would be simple invisible to him.

There are many "sifter" modules in drupal (TAC_lite, Taxonomy sifter etc), so the code (or the logit of it) could be easily be emulated.

What do you think?

jose reyero’s picture

jose reyero commented
Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

I think reopen when you have a patch, and not for 6.x anyway.

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented

@ drupalina...do you have a working solution right now? i'm looking for exactly the same as you do for drupal 7 and i think it is doable with taxonomy by using fields on user edit form and node add form. in views the content could be filtered out...