Multilingual forum module
Development and Programming
Hello,
I am on the search for viable solution to run a multilingual forum module. At the moment we are running the forum module with english and german threads separated in different boards. An user, who is not logged in gets to see only the boards according to their browser language. The other should collapse. A user who is logged in can choose whether to leave the boards of the other language collapsed or not. Unfortunately this cookie based collapsing of the boards is not working all the time and has it’s limitations if the user switches the computer. Another problem is that the search brings up results from both languages which is in particular a problem when using the search for the new posts or most active posts of the day.
Therefore I’m looking for a solution to solve this without hacking the forum module directly. As some of the german users would like to read boards in both languages I was thinking to make a custom user field where the user can specify the languages that he would like to read and to use that custom field to
1) choose the boards to show 2) filter the search fields
I should mention that all boards have the language in the name and that this is our main identifier for the selecting the appropriate boards.
As we use the forum user site-wide and have a relatively complex group structure already I wouldn’t like to use groups to make the boards available for the different users.
So does anybody have any ideas how to get this running? Or do I turning my head in a complete wrong direction?
thanks lars
Hey,
I’ve thought I just share some bits on how we managed the multi language board. I finally had to hack into the forum, but this wasn’t that difficult.
First we added a custom profile field where the user can choose between german or english in order to see only the forum boards in either or both language(s) depending on what he/she selected. The field is a checkbox. In order to get this I hacked some bits of the member module and added the appropriate code, where needed.
We then have a very string naming scheme for our boards, where all boards names
begin with either “English: ” or “German: “.Based on these scheme it is possible to check, which language are set in the profile and hide the corresponding boards. If a guest accesses the forum the browser language will be taken as main language. In case of user, who hasn’t chosen a language for the forum boards the either the localization settings or the browser language is taken to display the appropriate boards.
This solution makes it possible, that independent from the localization settings the user can select the boards he wants to see in a very easy way. This was one main goal, as most german users wanted to read the english boards as well.
/lars