drupal 7 multilingual strategy

Multilingual Strategy for Drupal OC Drupal - Feb 2013Mariano Crivello

Every day large multi-national companies are selecting Drupal as their web system of choice

Large companies choosing Drupal

● Scalability● Cost● Ability to manage multiple

language content from a single system

● Which Languages?○ Regional logic?

i.e. Spain serves : English, Spanish, French, Italian

● Who will be translating content?○ Web service

■ Cheap■ Prone to error■ Not good for Industry specific terminology

○ Translation service■ Works■ Expensive. (starts at about $350/pp.)

Questions you should ask

How will you manage workflow?● Quality Control

○ How will you manage the sign off of content?

● Wait for translations to publish?○ What is your publication time dependencies

● Is there Industry specific terminology○ Mapping terminology upfront is important for

agencies and services alike.

Questions you should ask (cont.)

● Content translation (i18n, locale)

● Entity translation (the future)

Two Major Methods for Translation

Comparison Chart

Content translation Entity translationonly works with nodes works with any entity type

one node per language (copies nodes) one entity for ALL languages (fields are translated)

uses core node title field Requires Title module for titles

need multiple menu links for one node can theoretically use one menu for all translations

breadcrumbs just work breadcrumbs can show wrong translation

Views language filtering just works Views language filtering needs a patch/module

XMLSitemap works XMLSitemap doesn’t work (work in progress)

Metatags Quick works per language Only works for English nodes

Bean blocks don’t work Bean blocks work nicely

● Can help manage regional language logic.● Permission structure for regional content

managers.○ Allows for independent workflows for each

region

Organic Groups

● Microsoft (Bing) Translator (machine)● Google Translate (machine)● Nativy (human)● MyGengo (human)● Supertext (human)● One Hour Translation (human)

Translation Services

XLIFF (XML Localisation Interchange File Format)

is an industry standard format that has been adopted by most translation systems and agencies.

Translation Standard

● Workflow module○ Build publication process○ Quality control

● The Translation Management Tool (TMGMT) module ○ Interfaces with external web services

Workflow management

● Menu translation● Taxonomy translation● Cost for human translation

Pain Points

Modules: ● Entity translation● Translation Management (TMGMT)● Workflow

Resources

BOOK - Drupal 7 Multilingual Sites

Resources (cont.)

http://www.packtpub.com/drupal-7-multilingual-sites/book

Resources (cont.)