In using multilingual, you have to use [xx]Text [/xx] for each language.
As it happened, if you dot have the translation for all the possible languages, and you want the English text for them, you have to copy the English text ([xx]English text[/xx]) over and over for eachnon translated language.
Does anyone have another solution?

If you only want English for just one product do not include the [en] ... [/en]
This text will then show in all languages.
 
Chris

Hi Chris
Thanks, I thing an ipmrovement is called for. For each language that dont have its[xx] [/xx] the default language (Engligh) will be displayed. How about that?
May be in the next release...
 
Vazueli

That is what happens now. Just don't show ANY [xx] [/xx].
 
Simple enough?

Hi Chris
I think you are wrong.
 
let us test two cases:
Case 1.
The admin input:
[en] English text [/en]
[de] German text [/de]
[it] Italian text [/it]
The page displayed:
For English - English text
For German - German text
For Italian - Italian text
For all other languages - NOTHING
Case 2.
The admin input:
English text (without the [en][/en])
[de] German text [/de]
[it] Italian text [/it]
The page displayed:
For English - English text
For German - English text + German text
For Italian - English text + Italian text
For all other languages - English text
 
In both cases there is a problem.
Or may be I got it wrong?
 
Vazueli

I can only tell you what I do
 
I use English and French
 
For both languages:
 
[en]Face[/en][fr]Visage[/fr]
 
Both in just English
 
Face --- ie no tags
 
Chris

Chris
 
Using only two languages is simple.
In my case, I want to use more languages and meanwhile I have the translation only for some of them. If I want to display the english text for those languages that I dont have the translation yet, I must copy the english text for each [xx][/xx]. I didn't find any other solution.
 
Vazueli

Vazueli,
 
I agree with you. It would be good if the software defualted to english when there is not a [language] text available.
 
I have my store set up for 5 languages. I have to duplicate the english text into each string set [xx][/xx] until I am able to provide the proper translations. In any fields that accept the {text} tags (messages in the store site) that are already provided with ViArt, I try to use those tags or add my own for each language.
 
Not the best set up, but at least I can make multiple languages available.
 
David

Ive been looking at this for a while now and I can see why the software does what it does - but this doesn't solve the problem of unwanted untagged text appearing in language specific situations..
 
How about any text that is between "[xx]" "[/xx]" tags is treated as non-language specific text as "xx" is unlikely to be a language abbreviation.
 
So:
Untagged text is displayed across all languages.
Tagged text is displayed in the specific language with or without untagged text.
Text tagged "xx" is displayed where the specific language text does not exist.

Hi Ned
That seem to be a nice solution.
Now, Viart people, lift the golve...
 
vazueli

Im discussing this with Natalia at the moment.

Hello,
 
This is the way how it works now:
When you use [xx][/xx] tags the text is shown only
for this XX language.
If no tags were used the text will be shown without
changes independently of the language that was chosen by the user.
 
As it could be a bit difficult to write tags for each product and language
(example:[aa]some product name[/aa][bb]..[/bb][cc]..[/cc][dd]..[/dd]etc)
we could recommend to use (for multilanguage products) some constant in product name field
(without any tags), e.g. SOME_PRODUCT_NAME_MSG
which, of course, should be defined in messages section
like other constants:
define("SOME_PRODUCT_NAME_MSG", "Some product name");
If you have no translation tags for some language just remove
this language from languages list so your users may not be
confused.
 
With regards,
ViArt Support Team

Hello Ned/Natalia
 
First, thanks for the effort in resolving tha issue.
 
As a new user I have 2 "beginners" questions.
1. In order to implement the improvement, did I have to replace any file in my shop?
2. I didnt quit understand the issue in the second part of the last mail. Is this a method to replace the tags metod with constants in the message section?
 
regards
vazueli

Hello Natalia,
 
I had hoped to use the Constants files for my multi-language site..
 
BUT...
Most of the languages are encoded with ("CHARSET", "windows-1252") instead of Unicode ("CHARSET", "utf-8")
I learned the hard way, I added a number of translations into the constants files for Spanish, German, French and Italian. I did a few hours of work with this before checking on how it looked on my store. I had done this earlier with English and it worked great. The special characters for Windows 1252 are weird compared to the "normal" special characters for unicode. For example ‰ instead of ä. I had to spend more time writing a script to change the unicode characters to win1252.
 
Are there unicode language files? I know the Japanese file is utf-8.
 
Thanks David

Natalia,
 
I found the "messages_utf8.zip" file in the message folder. (The file contains utf-8 language files) I unzipped it and I am experimenting with the language files that are in unicode. Why were these files not the default language constant files for the latest release? Is there a disadvantage to using them?
 
Is there ANY way to use a constant {I_AM_A_CONSTANT_MSG} in product names, descriptions, hilights, controls etc.? Instead of the [xx][/xx] system.
I know I can use them in custom blocks and email and html templates.
 
 
Thanks again,
 
David

Natalia
Reading again your post of 4/16/09 10:52 AM, I understand now that the suggestion made by Ned was notaccepted/implemented.
Is your solution of using constants means to use separate constants for every product, every description etc etc?,This is unacceptable, as now I will have a task of handling constants and messages in case of deleting/amendig/updating products.
In addition, you suggest to remove languages that have no translation. The situation is that most of the time there is only partly translation and in all places that no translation exsist, we have to copy the English text to the message file again...
Ned's solution looks simple and logic.
Your comments on the subject and solution will be appriciated.
 
vazueli

After a few days away from this perhaps the following might be better as it allows display where no selected/default language tag is present in multi language descriptions - but _without_ displaying any the untagged text? So if we call the universal language tag [??] the logic is:
 
If the "[??]" tag is present then only text within the "[??] [/??]" tag is displayed if there is no selected/default language tag present in the text input .
 
Otherwise the display is as now - untagged text and language specific tagged text (if present).
 
Natalia says they are looking at this so It would be good to have agreement that this will work?

Ned
 
You wrote:
If the "[??]" tag is present then only text within the "[??] [/??]" tag is displayed for all languages.
 
To be more precise it should be:
If the "[??]" tag is present then only text within the "[??] [/??]" tag is displayed for all languages that have no tagged text.
 
Am I correct?
 
vazueli

Yes - but Ive made it clearer above.
 
The selected/default language tag is the tag currently in use, that is set by the system on installation or changed by the user by selection.

Concerning multilingual tags. On July 1st I got the following message from the support team:
 
Hello Eli,
 
Good news, we think we will be able to add this option to our next official release.
We will inform about it in out news section.
 
With regards,
Natalia
ViArt Support Team
 
I'm still waiting...................

Hi guys!
 
I have read the above threads but I don’t get much, all I need to do is use viart with two product description languages English and Swedish.
Let’s say a customer clicks on the English flag you get the product info in English, and when you click on the Swedish flag you get the product info in English.
 
How do I do that? Any help would be much appreciated.
 
Bler

[en] Your English info[/en]
[sw] Your Swedish info[/sw]
 
 
Hope this helps
 
Best Regards,
Denis
ViartShop Russian Support Team
 
http://forum.viarts.ru/index.php?langid=1

Be careful, my set up gives Sweden as sv, not sw. Wirth checking in Administration > Static Tables > Languages
 
Chris

Thanks guys, you are the best.

Concerning multilingual tags. On July 1st I got the following message from the support team:
 
Hello Eli,
 
Good news, we think we will be able to add this option to our next official release.
We will inform about it in out news section.
 
With regards,
Natalia
ViArt Support Team
 
I'm still waiting...................