Multilingual sites in Joomla 1.7 with RT templates
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- Frank Leysen
- Rocketeer
- Posts: 97
- Thanks: 0
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I have been struggling with the new Joomla 1.7 multilanguage capabilities with Roknavmenu for almost a day now and finally got it worked out. So I'm giving the various steps on how to get multilang sites below. I hope it might help some others.
I started from a clean install of J17 with the original demo content and installed a RT template and Roknavmenu. The original demo content and menu's are set to "All" languages and I left it that way.
First, enable your website for multilanguage content as explained here:
- this is what you will find on the Joomla.org site under Language Switcher Tutorial for Joomla 1.6: http://docs.joomla.org/Language_Switcher_Tutorial_for_Joomla_1.6
I found it rather difficult to understand, but it allready gives you an idea of what to do and how the Language Switcher works. And it's for Joomla 1.6! Allthough Joomla 1.7 works in more or less the same way, there are some differences as you will see further.
- Here is a much better tutorial (and visual) tutorial: http://www.ostraining.com/blog/joomla/multi-language-sites-in-joomla-17/ BUT: they are wrong at point 9. of the tutorial as this one is also only valid for Joomla 1.6. But just start doing what is explained in the tutorial, except step 9.
In Joomla 1.7 you DO NOT have to create a menu item in the Mainmenu for each language, but you MUST create a new (main)menu for each language on your site.
So, if you want UK-English, FR-French and NL-Dutch as languages, you will have to create 3 new menus like UK-mainmenu, FR-mainmenu and NL-mainmenu (or any other names that you want to give them). While creating the menu items, you have to assign one item (the "Home", "Départ" "Start" items) as DEFAULT page (set Default Page" to YES). At the bottom of the Menu Manager: Edit Menu Item, set the Language to the appropriate language for that menu. Leave the Template Style to your default template style (I'm working with rt_modulus_j16) for now. You will have to change that later. Set the Menu Item Style to whatever you want and set the options at the right accordingly.
If you have chosen the right postion for the Language Switcher module, you will now see it on the frontpage of your site. You can change languages and if SEO is turned off, you will see that the language changes. But : you will allways see the same original Mainmenu (which is set to "All" languages, except if you dedicated it to another language).
The reason for this is that in the Gantry template manager, you have chosen the Mainmenu as the menu for your Roknavmenu. You cannot appoint different menu's to the Roknavmenu position. So what yo have to do is the following: change the menu to one of the other mainmenus you just created (e.g. UK-mainmenu, FR-mainmenu,...). Then SAVE AS COPY this setting and give it another name. Do the same for all your languages.
Then, go back to your new mainmenu menus and change set all the items to the appropriate language-template copy you just made. Take a look at your frontpage now. If you hit one of the flags (or dropdown selections, depending how you have set your Language Switcher Module) , you will see the menu changing. But: you will not see any content!
That's because all the demo content is set to "All" languages. Just add categories and content in the languages you need and you will see them appearing.
Apparently, all your modules etc. will have to be made for all the different languages you will be using on your site.
If you find other ways to get things working, please let me know.
Frank - Setup: Apache 2.2.19 - MySQL 5.1.58 - Php 5.3.6 - CentOS 5.0 64-bit
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- Northwind
- Rocketeer
- Posts: 83
- Thanks: 0
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Hi Frank,
i made step by step what you wrote in your post but seems I can't see even the flags of language switchet. Of course I activate system plugin and installed languages. Maybe there is some more to do?
Thank you.
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- Frank Leysen
- Rocketeer
- Posts: 97
- Thanks: 0
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Did you create "Content" names for each language?
You have to do that in Extensions->Language Manager->Content tab.
And then set parameters in the Language Switcher module correctly: "Use Dropdown"=No, "Use Image Flags"=Yes and if course publish the Language Switcher module in a position you can see.
Good luck.
Frank - Setup: Apache 2.2.19 - MySQL 5.1.58 - Php 5.3.6 - CentOS 5.0 64-bit
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- Frank Leysen
- Rocketeer
- Posts: 97
- Thanks: 0
- Here is another good guide to multilingual sites in J17: http://info-graf.fr/trunk/en/multi-lingual-steps-by-steps
- Setup: Apache 2.2.19 - MySQL 5.1.58 - Php 5.3.6 - CentOS 5.0 64-bit
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- rvbgnu
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 39
- Thanks: 0
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Nice guide Frank, thanks for sharing!
Also the tutorial on info-graf.fr is well done, by one of a leader of the joomla project, especially on Translation and language features of the CMS.
It would be nice if RocketTheme could have a tutorial and forum dedicated to use the built-in multi-language features in Joomla 1.7 (that avoid any third party extension conflict). It will start from the official wiki article on docs.joomla.org and details the steps to make successful multilingual web sites with RT templates and Gantry
To add to Frank guide, in the template style copy of your additional language, you can change as well some English strings (copyright, back to top, Reset settings, etc...).
NB: I am not good at tutorial writing, but you RT guys have proven, with each template and extension, that you are great at this, and have particularly helpful mods in the forum
( = happy customer)
- Best Regards, Hervé Boinnard - GMT
multilingual website and online business made easy
Irish Translation Team Coordinator - Project: forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=78621
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- Catrinel Pauna
- Elite Rocketeer
- Posts: 620
- Thanks: 0
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Hi,
I am trying to build a multilingual website and I have troubles making the menu show correctly. I am using Reflex and Joomla 1.7.
The plugin and module are enabled. Content languages installed (English, Hungarian, Romanian).
I also did the following, but something must be wrong:
- i have a main menu with a default home page and language is set to "all"
- until i created only 2 menus, only for Ro and En, both have a default page and languages are set to Ro and En
- i have created categories assigned to these languages and have articles in these languages.
- i created copies of the template for each language and for each i assigned the menu in that language.
However only the default mainmenu shows when going to the the website root.
Really need some help, I cannot figure what I am doing wrong.
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- Frank Leysen
- Rocketeer
- Posts: 97
- Thanks: 0
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Hi Catrinel,
You say you enabled the Language Switcher module. Can you see the flags or dropdown of the switcher? What happens if you choose one of the languages?
I suggest you disable all caching on your site for testing purposes.
Frank - Setup: Apache 2.2.19 - MySQL 5.1.58 - Php 5.3.6 - CentOS 5.0 64-bit
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