A site in several languages

It works like this: each language has its own entry with its own address. The Russian page “/o-dvizhke” and the English page “/about” are two entries linked to each other. The language switcher in the header takes the visitor to the right one; if there is no translation, the visitor stays where they were.

The most convenient way to create a translation is from the entry itself: open it, find the “Translations” block and click “Add a translation” next to the language you need; the form opens already linked to the original.

Until you choose a language for an entry, it is marked “All languages” and is visible to everyone. A single-language site does not need to know about entry languages at all: the language fields and the “Translations” section appear only when there is more than one language.

Translations are supported for Pages, News, Shop and builder sections, that is, for everything the owner writes themselves.

Important for the shop. A product translation has its own stock: the English card is a separate entry with its own warehouse. If you sold two mugs on the Russian page and two on the English one, and you had only two mugs, the engine will not notice. If it is the same product, keep the stock in one card and keep the second one without stock, or track both by hand. The panel reminds you of this right at the stock field.

The forum handles language differently: it is set on the section, not on the topic. A topic is written by a visitor in their own language, and there is no such thing as a “discussion translation”: it is a conversation, not a text. A section, however, is written by you, and it has to be in the reader’s language: create Russian sections and English ones, and each reader will see their own. A topic does not store a language at all; it takes it from its section. News has its own feed and its own RSS in each language, and the shop has its own storefront. News rubrics and product categories are created separately for each language: the Russian catalog needs “Kruzhki”, the English one “Mugs”. There is no need to link them to each other, because no switcher leads to a category.

Orders do not need a language: an order is not site content but a fact that has happened. It holds the name and price at the moment of purchase, copied from the product, and translating it would mean rewriting what has already happened.