1) Joomla 1.6 includes basic multilingual capabilities like language selection and content translation, but has limitations for more advanced multilingual sites. 2) Extensions like ZOO and ZOOlingual allow building powerful multilingual sites on Joomla 1.6 by creating content elements that can be translated and selecting the language dynamically. 3) Examples like inconto.com demonstrate how to use these extensions to build a fully multilingual site with language-specific menus, content, and templates on Joomla 1.6.

1. Joomla! 1.6 Multilingual
Sander Potjer
@sanderpotjer
2Value
Joomla
Associate
mee6ng
-­‐
May
30,
2011

2. Sander Potjer
• Co-founder of JoomlaCommunity.eu
• Organizer Joomla!Days Netherlands
• Organizer Joomla! User Groups in The Netherlands
• Company: Sander Potjer Webdevelopment
• 2Value associate
• Student Architecture

3. Joomla 1.5 Multilingual Options

4. Joomla 1.6 Multilingual Options

5. Joomla 1.6 Multilingual Options
X X
work in progress

6. Joomla 1.6 Multilingual Options
X X
work in progress

7. Joomla 1.6 Multilingual

8. Default Joomla 1.6 installation

9. Language manager - installed J! translations

10. Language manager - content languages

11. Language manager - edit content language

12. Plugin manager - new default plugin

13. Plugin manager - Language filter

14. Plugin manager - Language filter

15. Plugin manager - Language filter

16. Module manager - new module

17. Module manager - Language Switcher

18. Tadaa

19. Multiple start pages?

20. Multiple start pages! (default & lang specific)

21. Set-up language specific start page

22. Multiple start pages! (default & lang specific)

23. Content language selection
Menu’s, categories, articles, modules, etc.

24. Article manager language column

25. Awesome!

26. But....

27. Basic multilingual options
• Language = label on object, nothing more
• No relation between EN and NL articles for example
(But is it really required?)
• Language switcher = homepage switcher
(No direct menu item/article language switch)
• Probably need to build your site structure twice
• Joomla 1.6 core multilingual useful or...?

28. ... depends on your case

29. Don’t forget to think out of the box!

30. Case: inconto.com
(2 content languages, EN & NL)

32. Menu for each content language

33. Loaded via menu module per language

34. All content pages created with ZOO,
a very nice and flexible CCK extension
by YOOtheme
http://www.yootheme.com/zoo/

35. Pages created via custom ZOO apps (yootheme)

36. Elements for default content page
EN version
NL version

37. Both languages managed via 1 zoo item

38. Template rendering - positions of app

39. Template rendering - assign elements

40. Magic to detect active language of visitor
output for e.g.:
nl-NL or en-GB

41. Now we know how to detect the
active language of a visitor.
Let’s play with this in the template of
the ZOO app!

42. Template rendering - full view template

43. We can use this little detect language
trick on other places too!

44. Homepage custom simple modules

45. Homepage custom simple modules

46. Homepage custom simple modules
Module view file

47. Wouldn’t it be nice if ZOO would add
a language label to the Element
settings?
(so you don’t need to code it in your template)

48. Of course!
(yootheme: this is a feature request ;-) )

49. And what happened a few days after
this case site was launched?

50. ZOOlanders had the same great idea!

51. And they created a nice plugin
‘ZOOlingual’ (no ZOO hacks) to label a
language for a element
http://zoolanders.com/extensions/zoolingual/item/zoolingual (price 39 euro)

52. Joomla 1.6 Multilingual is a nice start for
Joomla core, but not very powerful yet.
But think out of the box, use extensions like
ZOO & ZOOlingual and you can create great
multilingual sites with Joomla 1.6 already
without Nooku or Joomfish!

53. Resources
• http://cocoate.com/joomla-16-english/multi-language-websites
• http://docs.joomla.org/Language_Switcher_Tutorial_for_Joomla_1.6 (EN)
• http://help.joomlacommunity.eu/joomla-16/283-instellingen/2147-handleiding-
taalselectie-voor-joomla-16.html (NL)
• http://www.yireo.com/blog/839-multilingual-options-in-joomla-16
• http://zoolanders.com/extensions/zoolingual/item/zoolingual
• http://www.yootheme.com/zoo/
• http://www.inconto.com