qTranslate 3.0

[mamouneyya]

Wow, I would like to test it. Where can I get it? I see just one file in the 3.X branch on SVN: http://svn.wp-plugins.org/qtranslate/branches/3.0/

Since the plugin is going to use the custom post types for storing the translations, does that mean that the custom fields and the other post info will be not synced with the original posts anymore? I mean, now, when you translate the title/description/excerpt of a post, any other info for the post including the custom fields will be still valid for all post translations, and if you changed any of their values it would be changed in all translations too. So it is somehow a 'syncing' behavior (while, technically, it's as simple as they are actually the same post, but with filtering/altering some of specified info).. Are we still able to get the same behavior with the new approach?

[Qian Qin]

i will check in my changes to 3.0 branch when i think a feature is complete. currently, is hard to test as the backend isn't there so there is no way to create post translations to test. I will send mails to everyone on the tester list once posts can be created.

3.0 release date will be after WP 3.1, but hopefully before WP 3.2.

[robertn]

Dear Qian,

Few days ago, I started a work on creating my personal multilingual blog based on
Wordpress and I have tried several plugins providing multilingual functionality.
Unfortunately, it turned out that neither of them satisfies my needs exactly.
Your plugin, qTranslate, is the closest to meet my requirements which
at first seemed to me to be quite natural and common.
Therefore, I am writing to you with few proposals regarding the upcoming 3.0
release. In my opinion, they would be easy to implement.
I would like to know what do you think about it.

First, let me explain what I am trying to do...

I need to create a blog supporting two languages, English (the default language) and Polish.
Of course, this is just an example, and it can be generalized to other and more languages.
Some of my blog posts and pages will have two language versions, but some of
them, only one language version. If a visitor prefers Polish (e.g. according to
the request send by his or her browser etc.), the site should be displayed in
this language. However, if some post or page is available in English only,
I would like that default version to be displayed.
In other words, for some posts and pages, I would like to do an unobstructive
fallback to the language in which the translation is available.
Possibly, with an additional information "(Sorry, this content is available
in English only)", above the post/page body.

This behaviour seems to be very natural for me; the visitor is able to see all
blog contents, either in his native language, or partially in the default/common
language (e.g. English), if it is the only available translation.
It seems that the described behaviour is desired by many Wordpress users.
I came across many questions related to this issue on the Internet, but no out-of-the-box solutions.
For example, several discussions on WPML forum (WPML also does not support this directly yet):

http://forum.wpml.org/topic.php?id=2092
http://forum.wpml.org/topic.php?id=1257
http://forum.wpml.org/topic.php?id=1703

To get such result, I tried to uncheck the option "Hide Content which is not
available for the selected language" in qTranslate Configuration. However, only
the messages "Sorry, this entry is only available in English." are
displayed then, instead of the only available translation contents.
Also, I do not want any language prefixes such as '(English) ' in the
posts/pages titles. I think that there should be an option to configure such
language prefix as a format string in qTranslate advanced settings,
e.g.: untranslated content prefix: '(%LANG) %text' or '' (no prefix).
Possibly, it would allow then even something like '%text <img src="/img/%LANG-flag.png"/>'.

Let me summarize my proposals now. I think that there should be a possibility
to configure the behaviour of qTranslate more flexible if some translation is
missing; Instead of the checkbox "Hide Untranslated Content", there should be
options for handling untranslated content:
1) Hide untranslated content (supported currently)
2) Show a message about available translations (supported currently)
and possibly also:
3) Fallback to the default language only
4) Fallback to the language of the highest priority/order available.

Let me explain it on the example of my blog.
In option 3, English visitors would see only English contents;
Polish visitors would see Polish translations or English version of the posts that
do not have a Polish translation.

In option 4, English visitors would see English posts or Polish
versions of the posts which do not have English translation;
Similarly, Polish visitors would see Polish version of the posts or English
version of the posts that do not have Polish translation.

Possibly, for options 3 and 4, also a checkbox "Show a message about available
translations (This entry is only available in ...)".

Currently, I have tweaked the source code of qTranslate a little bit to get
the expected behaviour on my blog. It is very simple, and I can provide you my
patch which allows to achieve the described functionality.

What do you think, could you implement some of those proposals?
Please let me know, if something needs a better explanation.
If you decided to take my proposals into account, I could be a tester of the 3.0 release.
This way I could avoid inconvenience with patching the source code after each
upgrade of your great plugin. Also, I hope that my proposals would make your
plugin even more robust and flexible in the upcoming 3.0 release.

I am looking forward to your response.

With Kind Regards,
Robert Nowotniak.

[shu]

What about rss for different languages?

tnx for the great work

[Idealien]

Fantastic news!

The biggest feature suggestion / request would be for full support for custom post type generation. If you're handling post / page via CPT you've probably got this on your radar, but the ability to identify meta boxes, custom fields and taxonomies as english / french would be fantastic.

I will definitely help beta test when it is ready.

[Qian Qin]

Let me summarize my proposals now. I think that there should be a possibility
to configure the behaviour of qTranslate more flexible if some translation is
missing; Instead of the checkbox "Hide Untranslated Content", there should be
options for handling untranslated content:
1) Hide untranslated content (supported currently)
2) Show a message about available translations (supported currently)
and possibly also:
3) Fallback to the default language only
4) Fallback to the language of the highest priority/order available.

Let me explain why this isn't done the proposed way:
1) When I visited a website and I choose a language, I want the website to only show that language. It is very irritating to suddenly see for example polish text when I explicitly choose English. This leaves a very unprofessional impression for the user.
2) The Webpage is marked in the user selected language, so SEO will be very angry with you if you do something like this. Not only because you are displaying the wrong language, but also because of showing duplicate content.
So what'S the solution? Well, automated translations with a hint for the original article is one way to go. You can see that Microsoft KB is doing that. I might consider this as a trade-off. But I still don't like Machine Translations.

[monarch]

hi ...a great plugin! I have just upgarded to wp3.0.2 and my old version on qt has been automatically disabled...i was hoping you can tell me when 3.0 will be ready ...many thanks

[Qian Qin]

3.0 will take a while, you will need to stick with 2.5.x until 3 ist done

[Person]

Let me explain why this isn't done the proposed way:
1) When I visited a website and I choose a language, I want the website to only show that language. It is very irritating to suddenly see for example polish text when I explicitly choose English. This leaves a very unprofessional impression for the user.
2) The Webpage is marked in the user selected language, so SEO will be very angry with you if you do something like this. Not only because you are displaying the wrong language, but also because of showing duplicate content.
So what'S the solution? Well, automated translations with a hint for the original article is one way to go. You can see that Microsoft KB is doing that. I might consider this as a trade-off. But I still don't like Machine Translations.

Perhaps a solution to amend this issue would be to have qTranslate disable or hide the language icon if the post or page isn't available in that language. This way, you're not creating duplicate content, and you're not misleading anyone into believing that a translation exists. Or, perhaps forward the user to the front page in that language if the post is unavailable. You could make it an optional setting, so that users can choose the behaviour they want.

[Andulka]

In other words, for some posts and pages, I would like to do an unobstructive
fallback to the language in which the translation is available.
Possibly, with an additional information "(Sorry, this content is available
in English only)", above the post/page body.

With posts, why not simply c&p the original text into the other language box (if I understood correctly what you're after)? Looks like this: http://www.fluteofshame.com/fi/category/james. Three first entries have been translated into Finnish, the rest haven't and they show the original English text without any tags or flags.
Jaana