My first multilingual project (English/German) with Textpattern

dotkraft · 2006-08-21 23:04:06

Hello everyone,

this is my second site authored with Textpattern. There are still a few CSS bugs that need to be fixed. But, overall, the site is done, minus a few usability quirks that I’m currently working to improve such as having a min-height (it was my friend’s wish to have a fixed height) for all browsers except IE, adding proper alternative content for the flash areas and so on.
I initially wanted to use the community plugin for multilingual sites, but so far (if I’m not mistaken) it does not work with clean URLs which is why I used a more primitive method (for now).

So far, the plugins I’ve used are:

Mary’s Quicktags plugin
Sencer’s jpcache plugin
zem’s contact form plugin

Anyway, just wanted to share. :)

Link to the site

soulship · 2006-08-22 02:11:03

Looks Great. Good work. and Funky Fashion :)

jakob · 2006-08-22 06:10:15

Looks very polished indeed. Clean code, clean urls in both languages and smart looks too, your client should be happy. I’m guessing your multilingual setup is simply more sections and a menu that limits the choice to the relevant language? Did you use any special trickery to link the different language articles with one another?

Out of interest, for what bit did you need the community plug-in?

dotkraft · 2006-08-22 07:36:24

Thank you soulship & jakob. :)

@ jakob. With community plugin I meant the multilingual plugin that is available. It was late when I wrote this post, so the “community’s” plugin would have made more sense. Or just plugin. lol. That happens after a few red bull.

For now I used sections to separate the languages. I also thought of creating a section by name of /en/ and then simply create urls that link to /section/category/title. That would have been cleaner. I’m still looking for ways to improve the multilingual functionality. For the linking to the different languages per site, I used the custom fields and added the ID of the corresponding article to them using zemlink (forgot to list the plugin in my list). The menus change to the appropiate language on a per page basis.

Last edited by dotkraft (2006-08-22 07:38:05)

jakob · 2006-08-22 10:24:53

Thanks for the infos, dotkraft. I’ve done it exactly the same way as you before too, also using zem_link and a “parallel article ID” in a custom field to relate articles to one another. For 2-language sites that’s okay, but with 3 or more languages the custom field solution becomes cumbersome.

Yes the /de/ and /en/ section version can work with txp, but only really when you have a simple site structure that you can flatten down to one level or categories and one level.

Hopefullly graeme and netcarver can break the mould with their plug-in.

dotkraft · 2006-08-22 14:47:13

jakob wrote:

Thanks for the infos, dotkraft. I’ve done it exactly the same way as you before too, also using zem_link and a “parallel article ID” in a custom field to relate articles to one another. For 2-language sites that’s okay, but with 3 or more languages the custom field solution becomes cumbersome.

Yes the /de/ and /en/ section version can work with txp, but only really when you have a simple site structure that you can flatten down to one level or categories and one level.

Hopefullly graeme and netcarver can break the mould with their plug-in.

Hi Jakob. Yes, that is my current problem, too. When it comes to anything larger, then it’s not going to be a viable option and so far, I’ve not come across a smart solution to do this via textpattern. So, my hope, too, is that the plugin that is in the works may pave the way for better ways of handling bigger multilingual pages. :)

Greetings,

Maleika

graeme · 2006-08-24 10:42:53

dotkraft I really like the site. A great design and I like how you have managed to get localised content.

I agree with what has already been pointed out, that your implementation would be far from ideal with complex site structures. Be assured that net-carver and I are trying to make sure the multilingual plugin flexible enough to be used on larger sites.

Hopefully we can get there. :)

dotkraft · 2006-08-24 14:21:31

graeme wrote:

dotkraft I really like the site. A great design and I like how you have managed to get localised content.

I agree with what has already been pointed out, that your implementation would be far from ideal with complex site structures. Be assured that net-carver and I are trying to make sure the multilingual plugin flexible enough to be used on larger sites.

Hopefully we can get there. :)

Graeme,

I appreciate the hard work and effort you two have put into the plugin project. I wish you and net-carver the best of luck and I think it’d be a major and significant addition to the flexibility and use of Textpattern. :)

Greetings,

Maleika

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#1 2006-08-21 23:04:06

My first multilingual project (English/German) with Textpattern

#2 2006-08-22 02:11:03

Re: My first multilingual project (English/German) with Textpattern

#3 2006-08-22 06:10:15

Re: My first multilingual project (English/German) with Textpattern

#4 2006-08-22 07:36:24

Re: My first multilingual project (English/German) with Textpattern

#5 2006-08-22 10:24:53

Re: My first multilingual project (English/German) with Textpattern

#6 2006-08-22 14:47:13

Re: My first multilingual project (English/German) with Textpattern

#7 2006-08-24 10:42:53

Re: My first multilingual project (English/German) with Textpattern

#8 2006-08-24 14:21:31

Re: My first multilingual project (English/German) with Textpattern

Board footer