JoomFish/jf-future — Issue #36: Native vs Joomfish Translation handling - pros and cons
Author: GeraintEdwards
Created: 2012-02-23 14:01:40+00:00
State: open

Reviewing where we are I think there a re couple of issues we should discuss relating to native/joomfish translation handling.

If you are not familiar with the distinction then look at the content.xml file we set the to native - this means that the translation of Joomla content items is (by default) stored in the Joomla content table using the native language flag AND a Joomfish mapping table which links the translation to the original. If this treatment was 'joomfish' (or not specified) we would be using the old Joomfish approach of storing the translations in the jf_content table with a separate row per field translated.

The main advantage of the native approach is performance and filtering/ordering of lists (e.g. you get the list of content items ordered by the translation title and not the order of the originals etc).

However it could lead to confusion since if the original article is set to display in all languages and it is translated into one specific language (e.g. german) then you will currently see this item appear twice in the frontend. The content component gets articles with language = german or * then Joomfish translates the * version so you end up with 2 identical german articles.

This problem can be addressed in 2 ways:
1. Tell users that they must specify a language for the original items instead of using 'All languages' (i.e. *) . Or
2. Use the Joomfish translation approacj

Any thoughts?