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Website design recommendations for a small business site?
steeladept:
I am not sure what you mean by strings and such, but what I meant is instead of having 6 static pages that you run through a translation engine, you create 18 pages for the three different languages. A different page for each language with the same content. Then perhaps a home page with a selector. It is certainly not very efficient, but if it is critical that each word, sentence, etc. is exactly correct, that is the only way I know of to be sure.
tranglos:
I am not sure what you mean by strings and such, but what I meant is instead of having 6 static pages that you run through a translation engine, you create 18 pages for the three different languages. A different page for each language with the same content. Then perhaps a home page with a selector. It is certainly not very efficient, but if it is critical that each word, sentence, etc. is exactly correct, that is the only way I know of to be sure.
-steeladept (April 22, 2009, 06:50 PM)
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No, that's fine, that's exactly the way to do it. However, this only covers my own text, my custom content.
There are also pieces of text coming from the Joomla itself - phrases such as "search", "previous", "next", "Last updated on" etc. The CMS also takes care of formatting dates, so by default it will use English names for weekdays and months, as well as the US-English format. I cannot have English dates on the Polish version of the site, or Polish dates on the English. This cannot be fixed just by adding pages, because the mechanism that displays dates (or the pieces of text I mentioned above) will still be the same for all pages.
Carol Haynes:
Having not used multilanguage stuff in Joomla I can't really say how it works but logged in users have the option to choose their default language (assuming the relevant language packs are installed). I would assume that you would have to duplicate content for each language and then the pages would be displayed automatically by users language choice. I am not sure what would happen if you start to add visitor comments etc.
As for dates you can choose your format - for En-GB installations it defaults to UK English format as standard so I can't see why the language packs wouldn't provide automaticaly for relevant formatting (and language). I'll have an experiment tomorrow and see what happens if I install an extra language pack.
Carol Haynes:
OK I have been having a play with this language setup and there are a couple of solutions in the form of Joomla plugins.
1) http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/languages/multi%252dlingual-content/1767/details
I have tried this one and it is dead easy to use. You install the plugin and then place a small token {joslang_select} somewhere where a language drop down menu can appear (you may need to edit the template source code or place it in a block somewhere - you can even include it in the text of relevant articles which have translations). In the plugin settings you can specify up to 7 languages (eg. just put a simple list like:
en=English
fr=French
in the plugin settings box. Then use your two letter code to tag content when writing pages etc. for the website - eg.
[en]Hello[/en][fr]Bonjour[/fr]
When you select a language from the drop down menu only the content tagged with that language will be displayed. I haven't tried it but I guess you can also use it in menus and block titles etc. too.
2) http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/languages/multi%252dlingual-content/6348/details
I haven't tried this one yet but it looks as though it can all be automated by the user selecting their own language and then only content in that language will be displayed. Sounds neater but if I understand correctly you effectively produce two documents for each article (each tagged with its own language).
The first approach is more flexible - you set up your site as you want and then can translate what you want when you want and add tags. No tags and it displays in the default language - tags and you get what you want. It also has the benefit that you only create one document for each article (rather than the second method where I think you have to produce 1 document for each langiage for each article. This method is more transparent but then you only get content in the language you choose. add to that it digs into and modifies a lot more native code and you would be relying on the developers to keep it going through new versons of Joomla. The current version has been tested to version 1.5.8 but already Joomla is on 1.5.10 and the updates are security fixes you want to apply - whether you language extension would then work is a bit 'suck it and see'.
There is also an automatic translation extension (joomFish) which a lot of people use. I am not a fan of automatic translation but it is there as an option.
With respect to 'native' language packs for Joomla - I have tried the French pack alongside the English pack and it is simple to choose the default language for the site (a couple of clicks). This translates the backend as well as obvious bits in the front end (and yes the dates are updated automatically to reflect the current language). When a user registers you can give them the option of updating their profile which means they can specify their own native language.
It would be very neat if option 1 above (josLang) could be enhanced one step further by reading the users own language preference rather than having to manually select the language from a drop down (although this is a nice option for unregistered visitors).
wraith808:
Thanks for that, wraith. Can I ask a favor, please? When I look at templates like these:
(1) http://www.4templates.com/view/xhtmlcss-templates/20/AX0398BL
(2) http://www.4templates.com/view/xhtmlcss-templates/2/AX0237GR
I cannot easily tell whether the section links (the column of blue menu buttons in the middle in (1); the row of black buttons under the main banner in (2)) are made of images or text. Do you know, or can you tell by looking at the screenshots, or by comparing with the templates you have used yourself? The screenshots they show are too small to tell the difference, and whoever is running the site isn't responding to questions asked via their contact form.
Also, the templates you bought from them - are they fixed width or fluid? Thanks a lot in advance!
-tranglos (April 22, 2009, 06:50 PM)
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They are usually images- they are given as blank images, and you are given the fonts to put what you want on them yourself. I usually convert them to photoshop format, then create a new layer for the text and any effects. Then I save the psd files for later use and flatten them for the actual web images.
Look at this template for an example: http://www.4templates.com/view/xhtmlcss-templates/20/VA0113BL
And my website: http://www.ankhana.net
This template came with the psds of the completed site look, html for the index and the inside pages, and the images sliced into 21 files with no text or anything.
As far as the second part of your question, it depends on the template. The best way to see is to go to the search form, then search for the item number and click dynamic width. If it comes back with nothing, then it's not dynamic, i.e. AX0398BL appears to be fixed width and height. Template monster is better about responding to your queries, but of course the templates there cost more.
Let me know if you have any more questions!
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