1419073 - [Fx] - Add language switcher to Firefox Forward blog

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(www.mozilla.org :: Pages & Content, enhancement)

Description

[Eric Renaud [:erenaud]]

Add language switcher to Firefox Forward blog
- The EN version (https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/) is missing a language switcher in the footer. There is currently no way for a user to reach the DE version (https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox-de/).

Comment 1

[Craig Cook (:craigcook)]

This can't exactly be a "language switcher" because the two blogs are separate and self-contained, not one-to-one equivalents. A language switcher allows a user to directly load alternative translations of the current page, but we can't do that with two separate blogs. We can certainly link from one blog to the other, though. 

I would suggest adding a sidebar menu on the German Firefox blog roughly equal to the one on the English Firefox blog (which needs some updates since we've removed some of those pages on mozilla.org). I'll need some guidance on language to use for the German blog, or any administrator can manage that sidebar under Appearance > Menus.

Comment 2

[Guy]

Would it be possible to merge the blogs or is there a reason they are separate? If we could link above the footer to the German homepage, that could also work as a workaround. I don't think a user would instinctively look in the sidebar menu for an alternative language version.

Comment 3

[Craig Cook (:craigcook)]

(In reply to Guy from comment #2)
> Would it be possible to merge the blogs or is there a reason they are
> separate? If we could link above the footer to the German homepage, that
> could also work as a workaround. I don't think a user would instinctively
> look in the sidebar menu for an alternative language version.

I don't think the two blogs currently have alternative language versions, the German blog seems to be mostly original content, not translations of the English blog. I could be mistaken; sadly I can't read German.

The German Firefox blog was created independent of the English blog so that it could publish its own content at its own pace for a German-speaking audience without worrying about translations. Translating content into a second language is much harder than just writing for one.

WordPress only supports one language per blog natively. It's possible to create a multi-lingual blog using a plugin, which is what we've done on Internet Citizen and Mozilla Berlin. In a multi-lingual blog each post has a primary language matched to a number of translations, so if you're reading a post in German for example you can switch to the English version of that same post (or any other languages it's been translated into). The plugin provides the mechanism to maintain those relationships between translations. But if a post has no translations there's nothing to relate to and you just end up with independent, mono-lingual posts anyway.

We could probably merge the English and German Firefox blogs but right now there would be no translations. Some content would only be in English and other content would only be in German. If you want to change that and in the future and publish the same content in multiple languages, then merging now seems sensible. If you want to continue publishing independently in two different languages without translations, then they should remain two separate blogs.

Comment 4

[Guy]

Thanks for your feedback and apologies for the delay!

The German blog is around 95% translations of US content so far, but we're looking to expand original content next year.

I think it's better to have a multi-lingual blog setup as we'll probably have a 50%/50% split of translations and original content going forward. It will also make it easier to add the language switcher to the blog so that users can navigate between languages.

Comment 5

[Eric Renaud [:erenaud]]

Craig - per Guy's reply in comment 4, please proceed with creating the multi-lingual blog via the plugin you mention.

Comment 6

[Craig Cook (:craigcook)]

I've set up the plugin and imported the content from /firefox-de into /firefox. You can see the German version at https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/de/. Also all the users who had access to the German blog have been given access to the combined multilingual blog.

I made an attempt to match up a few recent German posts to their English equivalents but I didn't go through all of them, and quite possibly overlooked some because I sadly can't read German. To connect a post to an existing translation, edit the post and find the "Languages" module, where you'll see a "Connect with translations" link.

The next steps are to decommission the old German Firefox blog and set up a redirect. For the moment we can keep the old German blog active in case we need to refer to while we finish the transition, but we should plan to delete it in the next few days (it's not good to have duplicate content in two places).

Comment 7

[Guy]

Please go ahead and set up the redirect to the new blog.

Comment 8

[Guy]

(In reply to Craig Cook (:craigcook) from comment #6)
> I've set up the plugin and imported the content from /firefox-de into
> /firefox. You can see the German version at
> https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/de/. Also all the users who had access to
> the German blog have been given access to the combined multilingual blog.
> 
> I made an attempt to match up a few recent German posts to their English
> equivalents but I didn't go through all of them, and quite possibly
> overlooked some because I sadly can't read German. To connect a post to an
> existing translation, edit the post and find the "Languages" module, where
> you'll see a "Connect with translations" link.
> 
> The next steps are to decommission the old German Firefox blog and set up a
> redirect. For the moment we can keep the old German blog active in case we
> need to refer to while we finish the transition, but we should plan to
> delete it in the next few days (it's not good to have duplicate content in
> two places).

Also, is the task to code the language switcher in the footer part of this ticket?

Comment 9

[Eric Renaud [:erenaud]]

Craig - per Guy's comment 7, we're ready for the redirect to be put in place.

Comment 10

[Craig Cook (:craigcook)]

I've deactivated the /firefox-de/ blog and set a redirect to /firefox/de/ via the WPEngine control panel:

Domain:       blog.mozilla.org	 
Source:       ^/firefox-de/(.*)
Destination:  /firefox/de/$1
Type:         301 Permanent


There is a language switcher in the sidebar menu as well as a link at the bottom of each translated post. I'm still working on the code needed to insert a switcher into the footer but that will hopefully land soon (we have to rework the whole footer to make it a dynamic widget area).

Comment 11

[Guy]

Thanks, Craig!

Comment 12

[Guy]

(In reply to Guy from comment #11)
> Thanks, Craig!

The language switcher should ideally link to the blog homepage of each language version.

Comment 13

[Eric Renaud [:erenaud]]

Craig - not sure if comment 12 was addressed, please review.

Comment 14

[Craig Cook (:craigcook)]

(In reply to Guy from comment #12)

(In reply to Guy from comment #11)

Thanks, Craig!

The language switcher should ideally link to the blog homepage of each
language version.

It links to the translation of the current post/page if one is available, otherwise it links to the home page.

For example, the English post https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/firefox-reality-oculus-go-vr/ is also available in German, so the language switcher goes directly to the German translation of that post. The English post https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/translate-the-web/ is only available in English, so the language switcher links to the German home page.

Turning the entire footer into a dynamic widget area was ultimately abandoned because it got overly complicated for something that would seldom be used. So I never did add a switcher to the footer and then we all just got on with our lives and forgot about it. However, if a language switcher in the footer is still desired I can still add it and just take simpler approach.

Comment 15

[Guy]

(In reply to Craig Cook (:craigcook) from comment #14)

Hi Craig, thanks, this is no longer required.

(In reply to Guy from comment #12)

(In reply to Guy from comment #11)

Thanks, Craig!

The language switcher should ideally link to the blog homepage of each
language version.

It links to the translation of the current post/page if one is available, otherwise it links to the home page.

For example, the English post https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/firefox-reality-oculus-go-vr/ is also available in German, so the language switcher goes directly to the German translation of that post. The English post https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/translate-the-web/ is only available in English, so the language switcher links to the German home page.

Turning the entire footer into a dynamic widget area was ultimately abandoned because it got overly complicated for something that would seldom be used. So I never did add a switcher to the footer and then we all just got on with our lives and forgot about it. However, if a language switcher in the footer is still desired I can still add it and just take simpler approach.