Thread

Hello everybody,

I used EE 1.6 a long time ago and would like to use EE 2 for a new project.

I’m wondering what would be the best solution for my multilang needs.

The obvious:
- URL such as /en/ and /fr/
- proper text translations
- proper images for languages

Also I need to be able to have the registration and the members area in the different languages.
And ideally, it would be nice to only have one file management system (ie a folder for ex. for the blog pictures, the audio and the videos shared by both languages)

This is where I don’t know if I should use the multisite manager and have 2 sites (one for each language) or if using a plugin (ex.Devotee) is enough.

Do you have the answer?

Thank you so much for your help!
- Vincent

Hi, vinco.

ExpressionEngine handles many multi-language sites.  There are some great options available at Devot-ee, or both EE 1 and EE 2:

http://devot-ee.com/search/results/search&keywords=language&channel=addons/

These should help get you started on making your ExpressionEngine site multi-lingual.

As far as having a multi-lingual login/signup goes, I’d look at User, by Solspace.

Using the MSM would be one way of doing it.

We haven’t found any out-of-the-box multi-language add-ons for EE that we liked, so we built our own custom setup for a client that wanted an English and Spanish version of their site using EE2 and custom fields for every content area in English, and then Spanish. They wanted to be able to have their own translator take their English copy and translate to Spanish, allowing them to update the content for both at any time without the need for a third-party service. It was a bit more work, but it gave us some freedom and the client some freedom for taking care of their own content.

We also set it up so that /en/ and /es/ allowed for any URL to be displayed with either English or Spanish, and the fallback was to display English when no Spanish content was available.

If you want to see this client site in action, check out Airforce Turbine Service and have a look at how the language switcher in the top right affects the content across the site:

http://www.pt6a.aero

Sounds like a great solution! I did something similar on a 1.x site, having a field for each language really helped. These days, I’d build a SafeCracker form with *just* a single language, and have a hidden field for the opposite language that was something like “No translation available.” and check for that text.

If anything else comes up, please do let us know in a new thread..