Manage and maintain multilingual content that integrates seamlessly with Plone.
Project description
Introduction
LinguaPlone aims to be the multilingual/translation solution for Plone, and achieves this by being as transparent as possible and by minimizing the impact for existing applications and Plone itself.
It utilizes Archetypes references to do the translation, and all content is left intact both on install and uninstall - thus, it will not disrupt your content structure in any way. It also works with WebDAV and FTP.
LinguaPlone doesn’t require a particular hierarchy of content, and will work with any layout of your content space.
Some benefits of LinguaPlone
Totally transparent, install-and-go.
Each translation is a discrete object, and can be workflowed individually.
This also means that it works with WebDAV and FTP.
Translations are kept track of using AT references.
You can multilingual-enable your types without affecting their operation outside LinguaPlone.
Even if you uninstall LinguaPlone after adding multilingual content, all your content will be intact and will work as separate objects! The only thing that will be inactive is the references between the objects. If you re-install it, they will be back. It’s very non-intrusive.
Supporting multilingual capabilities is a 4 (!) line addition to your Archetypes class, and does not alter the functionality of the class when used outside LinguaPlone.
Fully integrated with ATContentTypes, so the basic content types are translatable.
Supports language-independent fields (example: dates, first/last names) for fields you want to be the same across translations, and updated in all languages if one of them changes.
Uses the notion of Canonical versions, so you can do interesting things with workflow, like invalidate all translations of a document when the master copy has changed.
Dependencies
Requires the following minimum versions:
Plone 3.1.5
Installation
If you are upgrading LinguaPlone there may be an upgrade step that you need to do. Please check the manage_upgrades tab in portal_setup (in the Zope Management Interface or ZMI). First do this, then do a reinstall in the ‘’Add-on Products’ control panel.
Frequently asked questions
I see no language flags and switching language does not work
This happens if the cookie language negotiation scheme is not enabled. Look at the portal_languages tool in the ZMI and check if Use cookie for manual override is enabled.
LinguaPlone - quick demo instructions
LinguaPlone ships with a few example types that demonstrates the translation mechanism. It’s trivial to add this to your own classes (see the README), but to save you the hassle, you can try this simple experiment:
Make sure you have Plone 3.1.5 or newer installed.
Put LinguaPlone in your Products directory
(Re)start Zope
‘Site Setup’ → ‘Add/Remove Products’, install LinguaPlone
For the demonstration to make sense, we need to define a list of languages:
Go to the Site Setup
Click ‘Language Settings’
Select 3-4 languages from the selection list. Note that the languages are listed in their native name, so the sorting might be a bit unexpected (Spanish is Espanol, for example)
Press ‘Save’
Now we have a few languages to play with, and can go back to the Plone interface. Notice how you now have flags indicating your selected languages under the print/sendto area.
We now want to add a simple type:
Add a ‘Page’.
After filling out the type with some content and clicking ‘Save’, you will see that this content type has a pulldown menu, ‘Translate into’.
Select a language you want to translate this document into.
Save this translation.
Try to switch languages by clicking the flags.
That’s a very simple use case for the multilingual types.
Developer Usage
You can test it by multilingual-enabling your existing AT content types (see instructions below), or by testing the simple included types. Don’t forget to select what languages should be available in ‘portal_languages’ in the ZMI. :)
Credits
LinguaPlone was donated to the Plone Foundation by Jarn AS in March 2006.
- Design and development –
Jarn (Alexander Limi, Dorneles Tremea, Geir Baekholt, Helge Tesdal, Stefan H. Holek, Wichert Akkerman)
- Original design idea:
Object realms (Benjamin Saller, Kapil Thangavelu)
- Funding and deployment, initial version:
Oxfam International
- Additional funding/sponsorship:
Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, Centre for New European studies (Jonathan Lewis)
- Funding Plone 2.0.x compatibility:
Zope Japan Corporation (Takeshi Yamamoto)
Also many thanks to
- Simon Eisenmann:
For doing the hard job of the first implementations (I18NLayer) we had to learn from before doing this.
- Learning Lab Denmark:
For contributing and sponsoring the experience needed to build a multilingual solution.
- Nate Aune:
For always pushing for the better solution and making us realise LinguaPlone had to be built.
- Jodok Batlogg:
For extensive testing, deploying and feedback.
- Sasha Vincic:
For testing and expanding and making cool new stuff happen with LinguaPlone, XLIFF import/export in particular.
Implementation details
Architecture
LinguaPlone can only be used with Archetypes based content types. It provides a I18NBaseObject class that implements a ITranslatable interface that handles the translation linking. LinguaPlone provides base classes that inherits from I18NBaseObject and the regular AT base classes.
Language independent fields
Language independent fields are looked up from the canonical (original) translation.
The value is also stored on each translated object so every object has every attribute in case it is moved out of a translation context or some attributes (like start and end on Events) are referenced directly.
Language independence is set in the AT schema definition. Only AT based content types can have language independent fields.
Language lookup
The language tool returns a list of languages to look for. If there is no fallback, there will be only one element in the list.
Enable multilingual support in your content types
At the top, instead of from Products.Archetypes.atapi import *, you add:
try:
from Products.LinguaPlone.atapi import *
except ImportError:
# No multilingual support
from Products.Archetypes.public import *
For the fields that are language independent, you add ‘languageIndependent=True’ in the schema definition.
License
GNU General Public License, version 2.1
Frequently Asked Questions
- Can LinguaPlone be used to translate content?
Yes, that’s exactly the reason why it was developed.
- Can LinguaPlone be used to translate the Plone interface too?
Not really, the translation of Plone interface is handled by a different product, PloneTranslations.
- Does LinguaPlone supports folder translations?
Yes, both folderish and non-folderish content types can be translated.
- How LinguaPlone keep track of translations?
It uses Archetypes references to link the items. Every translation has a reference pointing to the ‘canonical’ item.
- What’s a ‘canonical’ item?
It’s the original content from where all translations are created. All translations have a reference pointing to it.
- Can I have items that are language independent?
Yes, every item without a language explicitly set will be considered language independent (neutral), and show up in all searches and navigation.
- Can I have fields that are language independent?
Yes. Look at the example types for the ‘languageIndependent’ schema definitions. Ideal for stuff like dates and names, where all translations should have the same text. The values that are language independent can only be edited in the canonical item, not in the translations.
- What’s the language of newly created content?
All content are initially created in the language you are currently in. If you want it to be language independent (neutral), you have to explicitly set this in the translation settings menu.
- What happens when I translate content?
You’re presented with a screen where you can select both the language for the original content and the language for the translation. This screen also shows you the content from the canonical item so you can see the original text for each field.
- What happens when I translate a folder?
A new folder is created with the selected language. Also, every content with the same language currently in the original folder will be moved to the new folder, automatically.
- What happens whe I translate the default view of a folder?
The default view is the content selected to be displayed when directly accessing a folder. In this case, when translating it, LinguaPlone first creates a translation for the folder, then the content.
- Why do catalog searches now only return content in the current language?
For all language-aware items (essentially, every item with the Language variable set), LinguaPlone filters out the content not relevant to the current language. This is done to have a consistent, one-language-at-a-time site. Mixing languages in a site is a very bad idea, and is very unpredictable.
- So I can’t search in any of the other languages?
Of course you can, but you have to explicitly ask for it by specifying ‘Language=all’ when doing a search.
- When I search for an item in the ZMI Find tab, the filter applies there too?
Yes. We patched the ZMI form, so you have a pulldown with the languages available as well an ‘All Languages’ option.
- Can I change the language of content after initial creation?
Yes, but you can only change the language to one of the untranslated ones. You can’t have two translations with the same language for the same content. When changing the content language, if the parent folder is already translated, LinguaPlone moves the content to the folder with the same language.
- How can I change the content language?
Both the ‘Properties’ tab and the ‘Manage Translations’ menu item allows you to change the language to ‘neutral’ again. The difference is that the latter also performs some restrictions to only display sane values, while the former display all languages. We recommend using the ‘Manage Translations’ entry in the Translate pulldown.
- Can I make an already translated content be language independent again?
Yes. You just need to change the language to ‘neutral’.
- What is the ‘neutral’ language?
It’s exacty what it means: neutral. In other words, it’s a way to represent the content in all languages. The content becomes language independent and can be displayed for any language when both navigating and searching.
- Why the flags are grayed out for some content?
It happens when the content isn’t available in that particular language. When all flags are grayed out, it means that the content is language neutral.
- What happens when I click in a grayed out flag?
You’re presented with a placeholder page, saying that the content isn’t available in that language, followed by the list of all the current translations. Additionally, you’re allowed to add a translation, if you have the required permissions.
- How LinguaPlone decides what language to use when someone access my site?
When you access a LinguaPlone site for the first time, LinguaPlone uses the header ‘HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE’ sent by the browser to decide the language that should be used, then set a cookie with it. From this point, you only will get content on that language, except if you click in a flag. In this case, the cookie value is updated to the new language. After the cookie is set, even if you directly access a content in a different language, LinguaPlone will lookup the content in your current language (from cookie) and present it instead of the requested content. If the content doesn’t have a translation in your language, the placeholder page with the available languages is displayed.
- How can I link an already existing content as a translation for another one?
The ‘Manage Translations’ menu item has a form that allows you to select any content from the same type from the current one as a new translation, in any of the untranslated languages.
Changelog
2.4.1 - 2010-11-25
Fixed possible XSS security issue in the translationbrowser_popup caused by displaying unfiltered content from the Description string field as HTML. Issue reported by Andrew Nicholson. [hannosch]
2.4 - Dec 9, 2008
Removed Language settings from the Translate into menu. A global action has no place in a context specific menu. [hannosch]
Remove the useless ‘changeLanguage’ script. In ‘manage_translations_form’, use ‘@@translate’ instead. [nouri]
Allow ‘id’ to be passed to addTranslation/createTranslation. [nouri]
2.3 - Nov 13, 2008
Registered NoCopyReferenceAdapter for translationOf relations on iterate checkout to avoid the checked out object becoming the translation. [tesdal]
Fixed unneeded AlreadyTranslated exception during a schema update. A schema update saves the current value, sets the default language (at which point there can easily be two English translations if that is the default language) and restores the original value again. So really there is no reason for doing anything other than setting the value in that case. [maurits]
addTranslation now returns the newly created translation. [wichert]
Include the FAQ in the package description. [wichert]
Refactor addTranslation: introduce adapters to determine where a translation should be created and to create the translation. [wichert]
Add path filter in catalog view, like the non-LP version has. [mj]
Ensure that translations are reindexed when processing an edit form; language independent fields may have been updated. [mj]
Extracted ILanguageIndependentFields adapter, encapsulating the synchronization of language independent fields. [stefan]
2.2 - July 22, 2008
LanguageIndependent fields are now shown in view mode for the translations, so they no longer are editable from the translations, which is how it’s documented to behave. [regebro]
Made the upgrade step also work on Plone 3 (GenericSetup 1.3). [maurits]
Registered GenericSetup upgrade step to get rid of an old linguaplone_various import step. I registered it for upgrading from 2.0 to 2.1 as that was when this import step was removed. It is always available in portal_setup/manage_upgrades in the ZMI. [maurits]
When going to the canonical translation, also switch to that language. [maurits]
On the manage_translations page do not show the form for linking to other content or deleting/unlinking existing translations when the current context is not the canonical language. Instead add a url to that canonical language. [maurits]
When adding a translation, do not throw an error when the language does not exist, but display that as info and go to that existing translation. I saw the ‘add translation’ option still for an already translated language, due to some caching. [maurits]
Ignore back reference when it is None. [maurits]
Made sure that an existing FieldIndex Language gets correctly replaced by our wanted LanguageIndex, instead of leaving an unusable index with an empty indexable attribute. [maurits]
Check if plone.browserlayer is installed before starting a possibly long reindex that would then be aborted. [maurits]
Make tests run on Plone 3.0.6 with plone.browserlayer 1.0rc3 and original GenericSetup (1.3) next to simply Plone 3.1. [maurits]
2.1.1 - May 1, 2008
Removed the dependency on the no longer existing plone.browserlayer GS profile. This closes http://dev.plone.org/plone/ticket/8083. [hannosch]
Add a workaround Plone bug #8028 (http://dev.plone.org/plone/ticket/8028) which causes site errors in contexts without a portal_type, such as the portlet add form. [wichert]
2.1 - April 11, 2008
Use our language selector viewlet for all content types instead of just translatable types. This makes things consistent for all types. [wichert]
Be more tolerant in unindexing non-existent content. [hannosch]
Allow languages to be unselected in the language control panel. [wichert]
Do not use LanguageDropdownChoiceWidget for the default language field in the control panel: LanguageDropdownChoiceWidget uses IUserPreferredLanguages, which does not use the proper vocabularies to find the language names. [wichert]
2.1beta1 - April 7, 2008
Register the LanguageIndex with the selection widget, so you can query for languages in Collections. [hannosch]
Enable the Plone language portlet and change its rendering link correctly to translations if they exist and to the site root otherwise. [wichert]
Dont depend on Quickinstaller at setup time and in browsermenu. [jensens]
Minor GenericSetup cleanup [jensens]
Make LinguaPlone play nice with archetypes.schemaextender and similar approaches. [jensens]
Declare plone.browserlayer as a dependency in our GenericSetup profile. This will automatically install it in Plone 3.1. [wichert]
Better unlink handling. This fixes http://plone.org/products/linguaplone/issues/127 [wichert]
2.1alpha1 - December 13, 2007
Refuse to install LinguaPlone of plone.browserlayer is not already installed. [wichert]
Register the PloneLanguageTool GenericSetup export/import steps in LinguaPlone as well. Standard Plone 3 installs never applied the PloneLanguageTool GenericSetup context, so without this portal_languages.xml would be ignored. [wichert]
Replace the standard Plone language control panel with our own version which allows enabling of multiple languages. [wichert]
Manage translations form now uses a kupu drawer when the kupu reference browser is enabled. [Duncan]
Actions from the manage translations screen now stay on that screen so multiple translations may be linked. Existing translations display their path. [Duncan]
2.0 - October 11, 2007
When creating new content in a translated parent use the language of the parent as the default language. [wichert]
Try to unlock objects before moving them into a newly translated folder. [wichert]
Add a test in the GS various import step if the Language catalog index in portal_catalog has indexed any objects. If not we just (re)created the index and we need to reindex it. This fixes content disappearing after installing LinguaPlone. [wichert]
Remove the code to mark LinguaPlone as installed in the quickinstaller from the GS profile: we can install LinguaPlone through the quickinstaller itself so this is not needed. [wichert]
2.0beta2 - September 24, 2007
Fix a syntax error in the translate_item template. [wichert]
Restructure the LinguaPlone product layout so it can be distributed as an egg. [wichert]
2.0beta1 - September 21, 2007
Allow translating the default view for an untranslated container again: we have correct code that adds a translation of the container as well now. [wichert]
Correct creationg of translations for objects which are the default view of a non-translatable parent. [wichert]
Correct handling of the translate into-menu for content with an untranslatable parent. [wichert]
2.0alpha2 - September 19, 2007
Only show the content menu if LinguaPlone is installed in the quick installer. [wichert]
Update functional tests to login as a member so the test can use unpublished content. [mj]
Disable the menu option to translate the default view for a folder to a language for which the folder has no translation. [wichert]
2.0alpha1 - September 10, 2007
Use a GenericSetup profile to install LinguaPlone. [wichert]
Move createTranslations to a @@translate browser view. [wichert]
Port to Plone 3.0.1. [wichert]
1.1 - UNRELEASED
Only allow linking to other objects of the same portal type. [wichert]
Add a sanity to prevent addTranslationReference from adding translations for languages which already have a translation. [wichert]
Policy change for language selector. We try to avoid disabled flags by looking for a translated parent. [fschulze]
Added UI to link translations together. [vlado, fschulze]
Changed to use _createObjectByType on addTranslation, bypassing possible conflicts with adding restrictions. [deo]
1.0.1 - September 24, 2007
Fix spitLanguage to return (None, None) when fed a non-string object. This fixes LP issue #101. [mj]
Fix LanguageIndex to deal better with objects where Language is either missing or not a callable. Fixes LP issue #99. [mj]
Fix LanguageIndex to run on python 2.3. [wichert]
Fix language selector to not go the the login screen if one of the translations is not accessible (i.e. in “private” state) [fschulze, godchap]
1.0 - June 19, 2007
If we are resetting the language due to a schema update do not delete the translation references. This fixes http://plone.org/products/linguaplone/issues/7 [wichert]
Removed Plone 2.0 compatibility. [fschulze]
Add a utility method to link content objects as translations. This is useful, for example, in a GenericSetup import step to link content created in a GenericSetup content step. [wichert]
Show the ‘Switch language to’ text in the language selector in the target language instead of the current language. [wichert]
Fixed so rename after creation only happend on TTW creation. Not on first edit of a through script created object. [sashav]
Fixed an issue if theres no getTranslations available. This happens if an non-lp-enabled at-based object exists direct in portal-object. [jensens]
Fixed some code that spit out DeprecationWarnings. [hannosch]
Instead of customizing switchLanguage we now have portlet_languages inside LinguaPlone and use the much nicer languageSelectorData. [jladage]
LanguageIndex is now a specialised index that will return alternative translations within the main language when searching. [mj]
0.9.0 - June 16, 2006
Now works with Plone 2.5 out-of-the-box, and Plone 2.1.3 if using the included PloneLanguageTool.
Fixed unicode error on translated languages in Plone 2.1.3. It can contains non-ascii characters, so the default strings need to be declared as unicode. [encolpe]
Fixed actions to fallback gracefully for the action attribute ‘name’ and ‘title’. [jladage] [encolpe]
Added the switchLanguage.py script and added support for translatable content. [jladage]
Fixed to lookup the language flag name directly from the language tool. Now, PloneLanguageTool 1.3 (or greater) is officially required. [deo]
Made tests compatible with Plone 2.5. [hannosch]
Some very minor i18n fixes. [hannosch]
Added a migration script to update language independent fields content. It must be manually run when upgrading from versions older than 0.9. [deo]
Removed the custom accessor/editAccessor generation. We’re only using custom mutators and translation mutators for now. This result in a ~30% performance improvement over the previous versions. [deo]
Made sure to copy independent language fields data to all translations as we removed the custom accessor. This also fixed the problem when you try to get values direct from fields, as now the data is in the translations too, not only in the canonical object. [deo]
Forwared fix for http://dev.plone.org/plone/ticket/4939. [deo]
Fixed a problem when switching between translations of images/files, where the content was shown, instead of the view screen. [deo]
Fixed to highlight the ‘Edit’ tab from a translation when you click it. [deo]
Final cut on Plone 2.0 compatibility. Backported tests, handled migrations and patched tool with the PythonScripts content. [deo] [sidnei]
Added labels to language-independent fields. [deo] [limi]
Made the initial default language follow the PloneLanguageTool config policy. [deo]
0.9-beta - October 27, 2005
Removed content border from Translation Unavailable template. [limi]
Made the test fields that are not editable render in view mode, not as non-editable text boxes. The reasons for this are that people tend to think that “if it is a text box, it’s editable”, and are then confused when it’s not (read-only widgets confuse the heck out of users), and the other reason is because it messes up multiple selection lists. [limi]
Made language-independent items not editable in a translation. [limi] [deo]
Added first cut on Plone 2.0 compatibility. [deo]
Fixed i18n domain everywhere… :-) [deo]
0.8.5 - September 6, 2005
Made content be created in neutral language, now that this concept works as expected. [deo]
Made addTranslation raise an AlreadyTranslated exception when trying to duplicate a translation. [deo]
Added form to create translation when the language don’t exist and if the user has the appropriate permissions. [deo]
Title on the flag switcher should say: “Switch language to $LANGUAGE (content translation not available)” - the last part if the content is not translated, to complement the ghosting (which is purely visual, and bad for accessibility). [deo]
Split screen should change sides (“From” language to the left, “To” language to the right). [deo]
Split screen should not show short name if turned off (like the default is in 2.1). [deo]
Flags aren’t on a separate line anymore (they used to be below the document actions). [limi]
Field titles are translated, field help is not. [deo]
Flags should probably be removed from the field titles, since the pulldown might make these misleading. [deo]
Split-screen pulldown needs language selectors when translating. [deo]
Use the translate_item template when editing translatable content, except the canonical one. [deo]
PloneLanguageTool has problems without LinguaPlone installed. [deo]
Added norwegian translation. [limi]
Improved i18n markup. Updated brazilian portuguese translation. [deo]
0.8 - August 15, 2005
Plone __browser_default__ review. [deo]
Adjust LP catalog patch for Plone 2.1. [stefan]
Allowed changing language of content, moving content to appropriate place, and raising a exception when forbidden. [deo]
Design the policy for the New language negotiator. [limi]
Grayed out flags. [deo, limi]
Handle switching to non-existing language (a.k.a. not_available_lang). [deo]
Handle translation of default pages. [deo]
Added hasTranslation() method for grayed-out flags. [deo]
ID policy for translating containing folder and moving translated content. [limi]
Language switching: the URL on flags should be the actual URL, not switchLanguage?set_language=no. [deo]
Fixed languageswitcher in Firefox. [deo]
LinguaPlone should not append language code to ID, it should use the same Plone 2.1 policy. [deo]
Implemented the new language negotiator, where content and interface languages are always in sync. [deo]
Test that Images in ATCT are keeping the image LangIndependent. [limi]
Update dropdown menus markup. [deo]
0.7 - September 24, 2004
Released at Plone Conference 2004. [limi] [testal] [geir]
Technology Preview - June 29, 2004
First publicly available version. [limi] [testal] [geir]
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