Need Babel clarifications (chunks, WF..)

Hi,

I'm trying Babel for the first time.
I followed the tutorial http://designfromwithin.com/995/modx-multilingual-setting-up-babel/ (wich seams to be the only one to be found).

Things are working half anf half.

I just did not understood :
Babel does TV synch , ok it works But:

How should I deal with chunks ? does it means we have to create specifics Tpl with specifics chunks for each languages ??

For instance how do you manage a Wayfinder menu wich calls something relative to an id page (so this id is not the one in another langage and WF output nothing).

Thank you

I'm in the same boat with chunks. It would be nice to have a cultureKey placeholder to specify chunk names with.

For example in YAMS (which I used with MODx Evolution) there was a (yams_id) that you could use as a placeholder. That way you could have a chunk for global elements such as chunkName_en, chunkName_es, etc and then call them on the page as chunkName_(yams_id) and they would automatically be included in the output in the correct language. I'll post back if I find a solution, but this seems to be a hinderance.

[Solved]

elz064, as is usually the case, after I post something I find the answer on my own, so I thought I would share with you. Something does exist as I mentioned in my previous post. There is a system setting called cultureKey, which you can use to access / set chunks on your pages. Here is an example.

I have a link on every page of a translated site that says 'Book Now'. I obviously don't want to have multiple template variables to assign that value. I just want one for every language that my site needs translating to. At this stage for me it is just English and Spanish.

I created 2 chunks, each with their own language text for 'Book Now':

• BookNow_en
• BookNow_es

Then I used the cultureKey system setting inside my chunk call for those items in my template following the MODx Revolution syntax:



The result: Whichever language you are in, it will call the correct chunk.

Another way is to use lexicons for the text in your chunks.

The advantage here: You reduce your amount of language dependent chunks by 50%. And if you have to do some changes later, you will be thankful for having used lexicons

Just put something like this in your chunk:

[[%text_key1? &namespace='used_namespace' &topic='area_you_chose_when_created_the_entry']]

(I do not have the correct ' - key on my iPad, so please use the correct ones as usual)

When you use a second lexicon entry after the entry above in the same chunk, you don't need to specify topic and namespace again. just use [[%text_key2]] and your done.

If you decide to add another language to you site later, you will just have to add a new translation to your lexicon, correct set up context and add the ressources to the nex context via babel - you do not have to touch the chunks again.