Development Seed Blog

Drupal Is Now a Lot More Multilingual

With the right mix of modules, you can use the current version of Drupal to build multilingual websites. But this works much more in a "get the job done" sort of way and doesn't provide a good comprehensive solution. Luckily that will soon change.

As I announced before, the multilingual system we've been working on (called i18n) has been committed to Drupal core in its next release. What this means is that Drupal 6 out of the box will allow for content in multiple languages and, using some contributed modules, you'll be able to use it to build complex multilingual sites. Also it means and that all contributed modules will be able to support multiple languages, which currently isn't the case. This will make it much easier to build extensive multilingual websites on Drupal, and I hope it will trigger more multilingual websites to be built on Drupal. And even better, if there's a high demand we'll be able to continue improving multilingual support and adding on new features.

Many of the basic features are ready to go, but we're still working on some additional functionality and trying to get other patches approved before the code freeze next month for Drupal 6. And for the features that don’t make it in, we'll add them later as contributed modules.

Here's a list of all the features, technical descriptions of them, and their status as of today. In the next couple weeks we'll post some explanations and screencasts of what some of these features really mean and what they can do for multilingual websites.

Features Already in Core

Language management and negotiation

Language can be set up by configurable language code, name, native nave, domain, path prefix, LTR/RTL setting, and weight for ordering. There's a pre-defined list of languages and more can be defined.

Several language negotiation options:

• None. Language will be independent of visitor preferences and language prefixes or domains
• Path prefix only. If a suitable path prefix is not identified, the default language is used.
• Path prefix with language fallback. If a suitable path prefix is not identified, language is based on user preferences and browser language settings.
• Domain name only. If a suitable domain name is not identified, the default language is used.

Language dependent path aliases

Path aliases can be defined globally and by language. An additional language parameter can be passed to url managing functions for choosing the alias in that language.

Language for nodes

There's a new language field in nodes that will define node language. This is the basis of our multilingual approach for content that will allow different languages to be associated with different types of content.

Locale support for multilingual requests

Previously the locale system didn't allow for translating to more than one language during the same page request. This is important for mailing since mail to users needs to be in the user's language, not in the site or page language. This has been fixed at the low level with a more powerful locale module.

Features In Progress in the Drupal Patch Queue

Dynamic string translation [Critical]

This relates to translating user-defined strings. We have proposed a solution that handles full objects, but haven't received much feedback. This also needs some performance optimization.

This is a critical feature that will allow for the translation of most user defined interface text and will provide a very simple API that can be used with most other modules. If this is accepted, it will be easy to adapt it to be used within the rest of Drupal.

Patch #141461 [Critical]: Introduce dynamic object translation API

Support for notifications in the user language [Important]

This will send email notifications to users in the user's language and not in the page request language. This relates to and relies on the "Locale support for multilingual requests" feature, which has been approved for core. The proposed patch is a wrapper for Drupal mailing functions that will handle emails in the user's language.

Patch #82499: Email text posting in the user's language

Language switcher block [Optional]

This is a simple language switcher block that will help anonymous users switch the site language (registered users have a language option in their account). It will also help registered users if they want to temporarily switch site language to view content in a different language.

Patch #141996: Language switcher block

Node translations [Optional]

Besides having language in nodes, we need to manage the relationships between content in different languages and define translation relationships that will be presented as cross-language links in the page. The proposed patch will add also some basic workflow, including marking all translations as source content for re-translation when the first version is updated.

Patch #142280: Add content (node) translation support to Drupal

Features in Progress in the Sandbox

All these pending features may be mostly addressed if the pending "dynamic string translation" hits Drupal core. However. we are also working on some alternate solutions that may be more adequate and flexible for these specific cases

Language dependent variables [Important]

The low level support is mostly worked out, but the interface solution is still in progress. We have a first implementation in the sandbox that will automatically handle variables in settings form with a minimal impact on all modules that use this feature.

Patch: Work in Progress

Multilingual menu items [Optional]

Besides having configurable menu items be translatable, which will be possible using the previously mentioned features, we may also need to have different menu items per language. This will be simple solution that includes adding a language field to menu items. The patch is on hold, as we have more critical patches still pending of approval.

Patch: On hold

Multilingual taxonomy [Optional]

As for the menu items case, we could also have different taxonomy vocabularies and terms per language. This is a work in progress and the final patch will depend on the progress we make with ones mentioned above.

Patch: Work in Progress