Multilingual support

This package supports creating content in multiple languages. This feature is based on django-parler. Historical anecdote: django-parler was created to make this CMS multilingual.

The enable multiple languages, configuring django-parler is sufficient.

Configuration

LANGUAGES = (
    ('en', _("Global Site")),
    ('en-us', _("US Site")),
    ('it', _('Italian')),
    ('nl', _('Dutch')),
    ('fr', _('French')),
    ('es', _('Spanish')),
)

PARLER_DEFAULT_LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en'  # defaults to LANGUAGE_CODE

SITE_ID = None

PARLER_LANGUAGES = {
    None: (
        # Default SITE_ID, all languages
        {'code': lang[0]} for lang in LANGUAGES
    ),
    2: (
        # SITE_ID 2: only english/french
        {'code': 'en',}
        {'code': 'fr',}
    ),
    'default': {
        # This is applied to each entry in this setting:
        'hide_untranslated': False,
        'hide_untranslated_menu_items': False,
        # 'fallback': 'en'  # set by PARLER_DEFAULT_LANGUAGE_CODE
    }
}

There are two extra values that can be used:

• hide_untranslated: if set to True, untranslated pages are not accessible.
• hide_untranslated_menu_items: is set to True, untranslated pages are not visible in the menu.

These values can be used in the “default” section, or in each dictionary entry per site.

Accessing content

There are several ways to expose translated content. One way is adding a subpath in the URL by using i18n_patterns():

Using i18n_patterns

Add the following to settings.py:

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES += (
    'django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware',  # or your own override/replacement
)

Add to urls.py:

from django.conf.urls import patterns, url
from django.conf.urls.i18n import i18n_patterns
from django.contrib import admin
from fluent_pages.sitemaps import PageSitemap

sitemaps = {
    # Place sitemaps here
    'pages': PageSitemap,
}

admin.autodiscover()

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    # All URLs that should not be prefixed with the country code,
    # e.g. robots.txt or django admin.
) + i18n_patterns('',
    # All URLS inside the i18n_patterns() get prefixed with the country code:
    # Django admin
    url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls),

    # SEO API's per language
    url(r'^sitemap.xml$', 'django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap', {'sitemaps': sitemaps}),

    # CMS modules
    url(r'', include('fluent_pages.urls')),
)

Using custom middleware

Nothing prevents you from writing custom middleware that sets the frontend language. For example:

Add the following to settings.py:

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en'  # default, e.g. for the admin
FRONTEND_LANGUAGE_CODE = 'de'

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES += (
    'mysite.middleware.FrontendLanguageMiddleware',
)

The custom middleware code:

from django.conf import settings
from django.utils import translation
from django.urls import reverse_lazy


class FrontendLanguageMiddleware(object):
    """
    Change the active language when visiting a frontend page.
    """
    def __init__(self):
        # NOTE: not locale aware, assuming the admin stays at a single URL.
        self._admin_prefix = reverse_lazy('admin:index', prefix='/')

    def process_request(self, request):
        if request.path_info.startswith(str(self._admin_prefix)):
            return  # Excluding the admin

        if settings.FRONTEND_LANGUAGE_CODE != settings.LANGUAGE_CODE:
            translation.activate(settings.FRONTEND_LANGUAGE_CODE)

This could even include detecting the sub-domain, and setting the language accordingly.

All queries that run afterwards read the active language setting, and display the content is the given language.

You can take this further and make Django aware of the sub-domain in it’s URLs by overriding ABSOLUTE_URL_OVERRIDES in the settings. The Page provides a default_url attribute for this specific use-case. You’ll also have to override the sitemap, as it won’t take absolute URLs into account.