multiLingual

The multiLingual component implements multilingual sites without extra contexts, unlike Babel.

Out of the box it fits most small sites such as landing pages or simple catalogs.

For more complex sites that use various extras and store entities that need to be translated, the component must be extended.

Component settings

The component requires friendly URLs to be enabled.

The component requires pdoTools version 2.8.2 or higher (lower versions were not tested).

Before using the component, set the ml_default_site_url setting. Set the default site URL there, e.g. https://mysite.ru/

Multi-context sites

If your site has more than one context and you want multilingual versions for each, define ml_default_site_url in every context.

For example, you have two sites on one MODX installation: http://mysite.com and https://mynewsite.ru.

In the first site's context set ml_default_site_url to http://mysite.com/

In the second context — https://mynewsite.ru/

Note the trailing slash.

The mlSetLanguage plugin must run after the plugin that switches contexts. So in the mlSetLanguage plugin settings, set the priority for the OnHandleRequest event higher than your context switcher.

Resource queries and pdoTools

When using pdoTools snippets for resource queries (pdoResources, pdoMenu), those snippets are not aware of multiLingual, so by default they get resource fields from the database in the default language regardless of the current language.

To have those snippets return translated fields, replace two system settings:

Setting	Value
pdoFetch.class	mlFetch
pdofetch_class_path	{core_path}components/multilingual/model/multilingual/

When querying resources in other ways, translation substitution is up to the developer.

See Translation principle for details.

How the component works

After installation you must first add site languages, then open any resource, go to the "Translations" tab and add translations for the fields.

In system settings you can edit which fields can be translated:

• Setting ml_resource_fields — JSON array of fields to translate:

{
  "modResource" : [
    "pagetitle",
    "longtitle",
    "content",
    "description",
    "introtext",
    "menutitle"
  ]
}

Key — class name, value — array of fields to translate.

• Setting ml_resource_tv_fields — JSON array of TV names to translate:

["tv1","tv2"]

Внимание

Use TV names, not IDs.