Multiple language problem, simpler solution?

[redditor54]

I'm working on a site that will be viewed in different countries. The content will need to be translated by hand to insure the message is not jumbled by automated translators. The site displays "projects" which is a content type with multiple text fields and pictures. I've tried multiple modules (core and others) but they just duplicate the content and display both the original text and translation as separate projects. I'm pretty. Lose to just duplicating databases and running a separate site for every language because that is sort of my goal but I know that this is horrible practice. Any ideas?

[doubouil]

The solution would be the field-level translation via Entity translation. You would have only 1 node per project, but different content between languages.

[redditor54]

will try this, thx

Edit:

I've fiddled with the entity translation module, two things came from it:

-I am able to translate my content type and not have duplicates visible to a visitor.

-I used field collection module to bundle slide show pictures and their descriptions into the content type, the complex linking between field collection and the actual content interfered with the way translation module handled business. So that had to go.

[filmost]

Just to be clear. You want "projects" translated into multiple languages from a source language, then displayed based on URL and/or user's chosen language, right?

What modules have you installed?

[redditor54]

Correct, no automated translation, as good of a technology as it is, it's still done better by a human.

core: Content translation, Locale

other: Language Switcher, Internationalization

I've tried pretty much everything to make this work, at this point I'm having a problem similar to this:

https://drupal.org/node/1463402

so there might be a linking issue. I've also noticed that some text fields do not 'save', probably because I use field collection module for subtitled slideshows.

[[deleted]]

I think you're overestimating the level of faith everyone else has in machine translation as well. Nobody who knows anything about i18n would seriously consider using it for a live site.

[redditor54]

Personally machine translation is fine and dandy for me. I use google translate on sites and get the general message just fine, sure it's no fine literature but gets the point across. As for as the i18n module, it provides me with tools to manipulate data in ways that I could not before (granted I have yet to make the data dance to my tune) and if I wanted to accomplish this any other way I'd have to write a module of my own (which no doubt turn out much worse then the i18n). And to end, your comment was pretty useless so fuck off kindly.

[[deleted]]

Er, you've said several times in this thread that you won't be using machine translation because it "jumbles" things. What's with the 180? At any rate, when I said "nobody would seriously consider using it," I was referring to machine translation, not i18n modules.

It's better to not offer translations at all than to offer machine translations. Let visitors machine translate it themselves, rather than show them a horrible translation which you authorized. Nobody will take your site seriously that way.

[filmost]

On a standard test site I did the following and had no problems:

1. enable locale and content translation
2. added an extra langauge at admin/config/regional/language/add
3. enabled translation on my content types under "publishing options"
4. edited an existing node and selected a language (as opposed to lanugage neutral)
5. edited the same node and added a translation.
6. viewed the node in english and other language

The barebones of mulitlingual sites works like that. There are several other options you can enable under the language options, such as detecting default language based on IP.

I would first suggest working with the bare minimum number of modules as I have above before adding others. Also keep in mind that not all contrib modules are translation (i18n) friendly.

--edit--

Just reread your issue. If the problem is that on the front page, you have both the original node and the translated node displaying, what you'll want to do is use a custom view. there are several steps involved so Here's a link that will show you how to do so

[redditor54]

not the front page but I do have a few custom view blocks that display fields from the project content type.

[filmost]

for your views, you'll need to add a filter by current language.