Textpattern Resources at textpattern.org

The MLP Pack is an extension pack for Textpattern that allows you to easily build and maintain multi-lingual websites and manage translations.

There is a tri-lingual demonstration site online at http://mlp-demo.netcarving.com which shows off most of the public side features of the pack.

In addition, I have posted a 23 minute flash movie that shows the admin interface of the MLP Pack. You can view the movie here.

For more background to the work you can read this forum thread.

Admin Features

• Each TxP user can choose their own admin language — and switch between admin languages at will.
• Localisation of plugin strings via the admin interface (at last, no editing of source files!)
• Ability to search for, and edit, any TxP language string by name or by content — in any of the languages supported by the site.
• Ability to quickly locate strings with missing renditions in any language.
• Support for ‘snippets’ to simplify page/form editing and writing or for localisation of tag attributes.
• String editor can operate in RTL or LTR mode (JS to toggle between the two.)
• Write tab now allows title/body/excerpt and preview in RTL as well as LTR mode.
• Import/export of your plugin strings or snippets so you can upload to live sites or share with others.
• Export of TxP strings using the TxP language file format for distribution to other/devs.
• Export of the MLP Pack strings in its own file format for you to bundle into your client’s MLP distribution.
• Support for articles as groups of renditions.
• Support for cloning of renditions and their translation into other languages using the existing write tab.
• Email notifications sent to translators when articles are cloned or have their author changed.
• Extra filtering of the list of renditions by language.
• No hijacking of existing fields (sections/categories/custom fields) to store language information, so you are free to use the all existing fields as you need to.
• Full localisation of the following fields…
  • Category titles
  • Section titles
  • Image alt text and captions
  • Link descriptions
  • File descriptions
• Setup and Cleanup wizards.

Public Features

• Detection of the language the user wants to view a site in via the url or browser headers.
• URLs re-written so that browser caches know the difference between the renditions of articles in different languages.
• Automatic selection of the correct renditions of snippets in pages and forms.
• Fully functional search/commenting/feeds for each language the site supports.
• Feeds are also adjusted for RTL languages.
• Localised categories, sections, file & link descriptions, image alt text & captions.
• 404 support for finding renditions that are not available in the requested language.
• A tag to list all available renditions of a given article and allow switching between them.
• Tags for accessing language codes and direction information.
• Conditional tag for testing the visitors’ browse languages or the directionality of the languages.

Credits

• Marios Buttner for his initial ideas, support, feedback, testing and translation.
• Graeme Porteous for the gbp_l10n plugin, the gbp_admin_library and help in the first few months of development.
• Destry Wion for pledging support early on.
• Team Textpattern for, ergh, Textpattern.