New feature : Multilingual Content

[g00fy]

I found django-multilingual very usefull (​http://code.google.com/p/django-multilingual/), but since it is not working well with complex models I think that django should nativly support multilingual content. And by that i mean text fields that are translation. For me this is very vital feature, and in my mind it would be very helpfull for developing multilingual websites such as booking.com (where decriptions of hotels are aviable in every 16 languages). I think that django developers will consider this ticket (idea) usefull.

[James Bennett]

Per mailing list discussion ​here, this is not likely to be integrated into Django prior to 1.0. Bumping to "Someday/Maybe" to reflect this.

[(none)]

Milestone post-1.0 deleted

[tomgruner]

It seems like for complex models you can use django-multilingual-model
​http://code.google.com/p/django-multilingual-model/

This is not the same as django-multilingual. It´s much simpler.

You have to create the translation models yourself, but it is very easy to use and doesn´t limit the model complexity in any way as it not trying to be overly magical.

By not moving multilingual fields into the core, I think Django can remain flexible to different multilingual solutions, as it´s hard to come up with a one size fits all solution. I´ve developed an app with django-multilingual-model and have had no problems, since it´s based on the normal ways models are related in Django anyway. I am just a user of django, not on the dev team, but I would prefer django as is with respect to multilingual content.

Also you can see a list of current solutions here:
​http://and-other-things.blogspot.com/2009/04/list-of-django-multilingual-model.html

[SashaN]

Replying to tolano:
just for curiosity: how do you solve problems with forms? I don't want to use
the admin interface for managing content in my app.

I was playing django-multilingual for a while. I've hit ​issue 71 there. I could come up
with kind of patch. But I'm not experienced in django/python enough to
create ultimate solution. I believe I need to create MultilingModelForm
class, which will have clean(), save() ... methods overloaded to save data
into model and translation table.

There is a django-transmeta, which solves problem with forms. I know there
is a problem with transmeta it 'messes up' model tables a bit. On the other
hand it provides (by my opinion) more simple interface than django-multilingual.

[hejsan]

I have started a discussion here: ​http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers/browse_thread/thread/c6fdd3abea0c7f0e

[blubmitsahne]

Overview of current implementations and alternatives documented in ModelInterNationalization

[Vlastimil Zíma]

I noticed this ticket while I am working on new version for django-multilingual-ng as old version lost support.
My branch is available at github: ​https://github.com/vzima/django-multilingual-ds9 it has still several issues now, but I tried to make core easy to read.

Notes to ModelInterNationalization wiki page.

• There is probably no good way how to store language information.
  • Translations as columns in same table
  • Translations as rows in same table
  • Translations as different table First two requires duplicity of non-translatable fields, first one even requires database changes when number of supported languages increases. In my opinion this is worse than having translations as different objects and need to join them when required.
• Easy access to translation for different language than currently active might be required by use case, i.e. display two languages on page at once or form that would contain fields for different languages to be displayed at once.

IMHO I would support solution (3) no only because I write app that works that way :)

This has several advantages

• No copies of non-translatable fields
• No troubles with relations because parent object is only one.
• Enables access to different languages if required
• Enables creation of all translations at once if required

[Aymeric Augustin]

Change UI/UX from NULL to False.

[Aymeric Augustin]

There are several good third-party applications providing this feature, the most popular one being django-modeltranslation (I think).

But there's no one-size-fits all solution. As a consequence, I believe it's better to leave this feature up to third-party applications.