Copied from http://drupal.org/node/313770#comment-2540958 ...
...why are people not using full node translation system? Is it because "multi-language" nodes facilitated by LS are just easier/faster to work with than creating multiple nodes, one per translation? I ask because, maybe what's really needed is a more streamlined UI for the standard Drupal node translation system, rather than a "better" Language Sections module. Maybe simply a module like LS which processes text in the way described in #11, then "unpacks" it at node creation time and creates multiple nodes, one per language, with titles, bodies, paths, menu items, etc., as required. It would also need to be able to "pack" those nodes back into text again so that editing could be done in the original format. So with this we would have the best of both worlds - the quick and easy way of creating and editing node content, and all the features of the full translation system. Thoughts?
Comments
While I'm here...
Could I ask for your input on this poll if you haven't already made it. Thanks.
Currently part of the team at https://lastcallmedia.com in a senior Drupal specialist role.
Long time no see :-)
I quite don't see the difference between two or many languages, at least in the way Drupal deals with multilanguage content.
Would you like to join us this february? I feel that you may bring interesting and challenging discussion points to our meeting this month (Traducciones e idiomas en Drupal: http://groups.drupal.org/node/47956).
Jorge
Hi Jorge, thanks, yes, I plan
Hi Jorge, thanks, yes, I plan to be there.
I agree there's no difference in the way Drupal handles two or many languages. But there is a difference from user/editor perspective. One difference, especially with just two languages, is that quite often the same person will create/edit both versions. With a larger number of languages that is unlikely. Furthermore, with a large number of languages, it's quite normal for translation work to be outsourced. So, the work-flow and user needs in the two cases can be quite different.
This leads on to the idea that functionality can be tuned in either case. A simple example, in the case of just two languages, it would probably be preferable for a single node edit page to display both languages, i.e.: Title (1), Title (2), Body (1), Body (2), url path (1), url path (2) and so on. My original question was because I have found some people want to pack more than one language into a single node using Language Sections. That's not really what the module was designed for, and so leads to problems (the node title, url, menu item etc. cannot be translated.) So the question was, why not simply use the standard Drupal (i18n) translation system, and I'm waiting for input, but I think the answer is because it's faster/easier to create "multi-language" content using Language Sections. It looks like the Internationalization UI module will address this topic - they describe the needs in this post.
Currently part of the team at https://lastcallmedia.com in a senior Drupal specialist role.