Wunderkraut is a Drupal service provider based in Munich that specializes in Drupal expertise, consulting, training, and implementation. They presented on building multilingual websites with Drupal, covering principles of multilingual sites, important modules like Locale and Entity Translation, techniques for translating interface text and content, language detection, and integrating external translation tools. Drupal 8 aims to improve on Drupal 7 by building core interface and content translation functionality.

1. I – Introduction >
About Wunderkraut
Wunderkraut is...
 Drupal Service Provider,
Munich, Germany
 Drupal-Expertise,
Consulting, Training,
Implementation
 Customers in Europe and
USA
 Multiple years of doing
Drupal
 → wunderkraut.com
Presenting today:
Reinhard Gloggengiesser
Florian Lorétan

2. I – Introduction >
Babel and
Beyond:
Building
multilingual
websites
with Drupal

3. I – Introduction >
• Principles of
multilingual sites
• Questions to ask
yourself
• The most important
Agenda modules
• Language detection
and selection
• Integration with
external tools and
services
• Outlook for Drupal 8

4. I – Introduction >
What is a multilingual site?
A site in a different language
than english?
A site with its interface in
multiple languages?
A site with content in multiple
languages?
A site with different content
for each language or
translated content?
A mixture of all of the above?

5. I – Introduction >
A foreign language site
 Just one language for site
visitors
 Interface, messages etc.
need to be translated

6. I – Introduction >
Interface in different languages
 Content stays mostly the
same
 Navigation, info-blocks,
important buttons are
translated
 Suitable for cases where
you want to offer at least
*some* internationalization.

7. I – Introduction >
Different content in multiple languages
 Content is different
depending on the selected
language
 Switching between
languages changes the
interface as well
 Suitable for cases where
you offer highly individual
content to different
audiences.

8. I – Introduction >
Translated content in multiple languages
 Content is the same no
matter what is the selected
language
 Switching between
languages changes the
interface as well
 Suitable for cases where
you have ample resources
to translate all your
content.

9. I – Introduction >
Question to ask yourself
 What resources do you
have for doing translations?
 Shall untranslated content
be visible?
 Do languages correlate to
regions?
 Who will translate?
 What will be the default
language of the site?
 How will language affect
the design of the site?

10. II – Techniques >
The most important modules
Drupal Core
Locale
Content translation
Contributed
I18n (Internationalization)
Entity translation
Localization update
Translation overview
Localization client

11. II – Techniques >
Translating interface texts
Locale module
Manually import, edit and
export interface translations
Search all translatable
strings
Filter by language and
status
Drupal 6 and 7

12. II – Techniques >
Translating interface texts
Localization update
Download and update
current translations of Drupal
core and contributed
modules
From localize.drupal.org
Select update strategy
http://drupal.org/project/l10
n_update
Drupal 6 and 7

13. II – Techniques >
Translating interface texts
Localization client
Change and save
translations for interface
strings right from the page
No need to enter admin
interface
http://drupal.org/project/l10
n_client
Drupal 6 and 7

14. II – Techniques >
Translating content

15. II – Techniques >
Translating content
Settings per content type
Different methods for different content types are possible.

16. II – Techniques >
Translating content
Node translation
Content translation module
(Drupal core)
New node for each
translation
Nodes are mapped
together

17. II – Techniques >
Translating content
Field level translation
Entity translation module
(drupal.org/project/entity_tran
slation)
Translation of fields instead $node->field_body['en'][0]['value']
of nodes
Fields are translatable in
core

18. II – Techniques >
Field level translation
Works for:
Nodes
Taxonomy terms
Users
Comments
...

19. II – Techniques >
Field level translation
Translatability:
Can be translated: Can‘t be translated:
All fields Author
Additional per-translation Promoted
metadata Creation and modification
date
Title...

20. II – Techniques >
Field level translation
Title module:
$node->title
$term->name
$term->description $node->field_title
$term->field_name
$term->field_description

21. II – Techniques >
Field level translation
Language fallback

22. II – Techniques >
Language detection
 By URL
 example.com/de, /en, /fr ...
 example.de, example.com,
example.fr
 de.example.com,
fr.example.com
 From session
 User preference
 Browser setting
Freely sortable!

23. III – Using external tools >
Translations from drupal.org
localize.drupal.org
Translations for Drupal
core, modules, and themes
Everyone can participate!
Source for translations via
http://drupal.org/project/l10n_
update
Drupal 5, 6 and 7

24. III – Using external tools >
Translation Management
Drupal.org/project/translation
_management
Provides integration with
external translation
memories
Icanlocalize.com
Provides dashboard for
translations
Drupal 6 and 7

25. III – Using external tools >
Translation Management Tool
drupal.org/project/tmgmt
Different module!
Pluggable architecture for
integrating various backends
 Google translate (machine)
 Bing translator (machine)
 Nativy (human)
 MyGengo (human)
 Supertext (human)
 One hour translation (human)
Drupal 7 only

26. III – Outlook >
The future of multilanguage in Drupal
Multilanguage in Drupal 7:
 Lots of different modules
 Overlapping functionality
Multilanguage in Drupal 8
 Interface and content
translation built into core
 Cleanup of functionality