Enhancements/Questions on Localization

[HermesSbicego-Laser]

Hi guys, I have a suggestion/question for you, related to how localization in Orchard works: in particular I would like to know which plans does the community have in order to improve it... some examples, to be more specific:

1. Container/Containable items have no automations in order to keep container and containable items synchronized based on their culture
2. Same for Taxonomies and terms, Taxonomy picker field, Content Picker Fileds and so on

It would be nice to have a site settings (or any more granular setting) that tells to our site/part/field what to do if it finds translated contents

We did something for taxonomies/terms/taxonomy field and ContentPickerField for 1.8.2; our approach unfortunately has some negative effects because we had to suppress some default behaviour of Orchard (drivers and handlers); for example a behaviour we had to override was in taxonomy: when a translation for a taxonomy is created the modules creates a new

taxnomy.Name + " Term"

content Type, so we had a proliferation of unnecessary ContentTypes "ProductTypeTerm", "TipoProdottiTerm", "TypesDeProduitsTerm", and we could not accept this effect (collateral effect due to how taxonomies was designed)...

However, being localization a crucial feature of CMS, we would like to know your opinion on that in order to plan our next steps

Another philosphical question: should be the Orchard.Localization Module manage how other modules should react with localizable related contents? Or should every module be designed to consistently manage localization?
Personally I prefer the second approach, maybe with some point of extension. Not sure how: IEventHandler called by LocalizationController? adding ContentPartDriver method?
What do you think?

Thank you for sharing your opinion with me.

[sebastienros]

I will setup a design meeting to talk about localization.

[HermesSbicego-Laser]

@sebastienros , nice. We will partecipate, probably @MatteoPiovanelli-Laser and me. If it's possible we will prefer a date after November 4... tnks

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

Hello. @sebastienros, is there any news on the discussion about localization?

[sebastienros]

Is November 4th ok for everyone, anytime between 10am PST to 1pm PST (18 to 21 in Central Europe right now)

[sebastienros]

/cc @jersiovic @urbanit

[urbanit]

It works for me.

[urbanit]

I mean 10am pst works for me...

[jersiovic]

Ok 10am pst also works for me

[jersiovic]

To be sure we don't forget points that IMO are interesting here it is a list of needs that IMO is desirable localization solves:

LOCALIZATION NEEDS

1. To localize data for some fields of a content item.

2. To share unlocalized data between all cultures of a content item.

3. To have permissions per culture (or unlocalized) of a content item.

4. To be able of publishing and set author data only of one culture (or unlocalized)

5. When localizing taxonomies that has exactly same terms for each culture but with translated captions:

   • a. To don't need one taxonomy type per culture
   • b. To be able of change the hierarchy of terms easily for all the cultures at the same time.
   • c. To be able of removing a term and its localized versions easily.

6. To be able of query localized content items by culture through Projections and through Content Manager

7. To be able of query content items filtering by its pointed localized content through Projections and through Content Manager (We need all localized contents of a pointed content is considered the same content).

   Example: You have a non-localizable BoatOffer type with:

   • A Content Picker field pointing to a localizable content items of Boat type.
   • A Taxonomy field pointing to a localizable term of a taxonomy.
     It is desirable Orchard out of the box allows us to filter boatoffers by a term of a localized taxonomy through Projections and through ContentManager without adding extra complexity.

8. To be able of grouping content items by its pointed localized content.

   Example: For the previous example we need an efficient solution which provides BoatOffers grouped by pointed taxonomy term considering same term all those localized terms of the same term.

9. Help to maintain things simple in scenarios where you reference localized content items.

Example: You have class OrderType containing OrderLines with content items ids pointing to content items of type Product. It is desirable code used to deal with Products (filter, group, access data) would be the same if Products is non localizable initially and in the future is changed to localizable. With current solution problem after you make Product localizable with another culture different than the one used by default is you need all products duplicated and need to deal with this duplication everywhere.
10. Allow to work with taxonomies with different hierarchies per culture.
11. Allow to work easily with content items that are not localized in all cultures.

LOCALIZATION SCENARIOS

1. Contents that is expected they will have all its localized fields fulfilled for all the cultures of the site.
2. Contents that are only available for certain cultures.

[jersiovic]

This is my current view of the two solutions discussed by the moment in relation to the NEEDS defined previously. Maybe it is interesting for the Friday discussion.

LOCALIZATION SOLUTIONS

CulturePart pointing to related localized Content Items

Pros:

• Allows Need 1 and Need 2 based on redundancy. Requires extra process for syncing unlocalized data between content items of each culture. Writes are less efficient.
• Allows without extra work Need 4.
• Allows without extra work Need 10.
• Allows without extra work Need 11.

To-Do:

• Need 3: Doesn't allow to set access permission per culture. Currently you can provide access to owner of a content item not by culture. We would need to implement a mechanism for enable that feature. If we want to controlate permissions for unlocalized fields, this solution doesn't fit with that need.

Cons:

• Need 3: It doesn't provide solution for permissions, author and publishing of only unlocalized data.
• Need 5: It doesn't provide solution for Need 5.b and 5.c. We would need to distinguish in some way taxonomies that have same hierarchy of terms for all its cultures from those that not. For the first ones Orchard should offer ways of managing them in as simpler way despite they are separated content items.
• It doesn't provide a solution for Need 7 and Need 8 leaving the user and developer alone with this complexity. A possible solution can be to store always the master content item id in fields used for relate a content item with another.
  Problems are that extra accesses to db will be needed in this cases:
  • When saving a content item to get the master one.
  • When content item is rendered for showing the localized term with the same culture as the one required by the user. When you have 12 taxonomy fields in a content item those things matter.
• It doesn't provide a solution for Need 9, so complexity arise to other parts of you app that are agnostic of orchard.

A content item contains all its localized data

Pros:

• Allows Need 1 and Need 2 in a very simple and efficient way.
• Allows without extra work Need 5.
• Allows without extra work Need 6
• Allows without extra work Need 7.
• Allows without extra work Need 8.
• Allows without extra work Need 9.
• Allows without extra work Need 10 (if Need 4 is solved as commented in cons).
• Allows without extra work Need 11 (if Need 4 is solved as commented in cons).

To-Do:

• Need 3: As in previous solution we need a mechanism to set Permissions per culture at Role level. However If we want to controlate permissions for unlocalized fields, this solution fit very well with that need.

Cons:

• For Need 4) we need to stablish a mechanism to set author and publication of data per culture within a content item. Maybe we need an extra table called ContentItemCultureRecord with PK(ContentItemId, CultureId) that contains columns Author and Published cultures.

When we edit a content item with localizable data through Admin UI we will see non localized data and localized data can be seen/edited using a combo to choose the culture in which we want to see those fields.

When editing a content item, those fields we don't have permissions to modify will appear in readonly mode.

-- EDITED --

Save and Publish buttons will store or Publish content item of only data in the culture for which the user has permissions. Only data of cultures with any non-blank data fulfilled will be marked as published. That means when you don't fulfill data for one culture that Content item won't be considered as published for that cultured.
Alternatively we can offer a setting at conten type level that mark its Content items always available for all cultures no matter what we fulfill when we store it.

[jersiovic]

Please take a look to this interesting video from the Drupal community related with this topic:
Vimeo presents: Drupal 7/8 Content Translation models http://vimeo.com/27068202

[HermesSbicego-Laser]

Works also for me 10am pst.

[sebastienros]

Meeting notes

default: en-US

Page content type With no fields (body, title, url)
Home page / -> en-US (id = 10) -> (Id=10 , TSId = 10)
Pagina de inicio /pagina-de-inicio -> es-ES (micId: 10) Id =11, TSId = 10
Pagina di inicia /pagina-di-inicia -> it-IT (micId: 10) Id =12, TSId = 10

Product, Title, Weight field, not localizable, Draftable

Motorbike -> Weight: 50kg -> Helmet
Motocicleta (es-ES) -> Weight: 50kg -> Casco
Motocicleta (it-IT) -> Weight: 50kg -> Casci

O1

Master content item id === Translation sets ids

• Field localization doesn't work
  • Synchronize data across translation set
    • Question: Can we change it (a neutral) in any translation, can we display the value in every localization, or just on the main one
      • Yes -> propagates on "publish", and also updates all the drafts if any
    • If we rollback a localized item, we need to syncronize its fields also
    • Field Setting to mark it "culture neutral" / "non localizable"
    • Content handler to detect the fields, on publication/rollback
• You can delete any translation independently
  • Unpublish master content item
• How to select a content neutral content item (from any culture, not culture specific, i.e. the TS id)
  • We need to select the MCI id
• The Content Item Picker field shows a drop down with all languages (can/should we store the MCId also?)
  • Option (Settings) to ensure the selected items have the same culture as the current culture
    • Sub-option to translate the selection automatically when a localized version is created
• Should we localize menus
  • We can have different menus for each language, in text and in structure
  • Today we can create different menus, and use widget layers to render for each language
    • Solution: Add a LocalizationPart to Widgets, each widget in the Widgets Translation Set, will point to a different menu, when the widget is rendered, it will be filtered without the need of a Layer. It works today if you create new Widgets in different languages in different Translation sets, not by translating an existing widget (see bug BUG: localized widgets do not seem to be shown correctly #7347)
  • Optionally Be able to add a LocalizationPart to Menu and add a culture selector in the Menu editor using this part, so that synchronizing menus across languages is easier. It's independent from the previous item.
• When a Clone is created to create a new localization, we should be able to customize the cloning event to create
  automatic translations. Example: Convert a Content Item Picker to its translation, or Taxonomy terms.
  • Add a property in the ClonedContentContext for the target culture

-- Different menu structures

"Menu English"
mi1, mi2

"Menu Italian"
mi1, mi2

(Localization Part to Menu Widget)

New Menu Widget

"English menu everywhere"
Menu -> Menu English
Localization part Culture -> English

New translation
"English menu everywhere"
Menu -> Menu Italian
Localization part Culture -> English

-- Same menu structure (TODO)
Translate menu items
Localization part to "Menu Items"

Taxonomies: Same as Menu items?

---

Issue, we only have a MSCId if the localization part is defined

Cid Mcid
1 1
2 2
3 2
4 NULL
5 NULL

• Since 1.10 all master contents have their MCIds to 0, should it be the same id as the content item id.

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

Hi,

@HermesSbicego-Laser and I debriefed offline a bit. We have some comments on what we discussed regarding the ContentPicker. Specifically, the following points from @sebastienros' notes:

How to select a content neutral content item (from any culture, not culture specific, i.e. the TS id)

• We need to select the MCI id

The Content Item Picker field shows a drop down with all languages (can/should we store the MCId also?)

• Option (Settings) to ensure the selected items have the same culture as the current culture
  • Sub-option to translate the selection automatically when a localized version is created

Adding the dropdown with the language selection in the "list" window that appears when clicking "Add" for a ContentPickerField is pretty straightforward, and does not actually require any dependency with the Orchard.Localization module (like it's done in the contents list view).

The Option and Sub-option I think will require a dependency from Orchard.Localization. To avoid introducing that dependency to the Orchard.ContentPicker feature (thus avoid back-compatibility issues) we would go and create another feature in the Orchard.ContentPicker module. Something along the lines of Orchard.ContentPickerLocalizationExtensions.
In that feature, we would add the settings we discussed, and the corresponding functionalities. A lot of those we actually have already as a custom extension we had built in O1.8, so it should not take too long to get a PR out for that.
Some questions remain for the sub-option:

• When should the translation happen? I think it should be on a save/publish, since when we are doing the translation (click on the "new translation" link) we have not yet selected the target localization. Also, since the clone feature is not yet in 1.10.x, that should come later anyway.
• How should we handle selected content items for which there is no translation? I would put a further setting to allow the users to choose whether they want to keep the content in the "wrong" language, or get rid of it (i.e. references to those items for which we find no pre-existing localization to the "correct" culture should be removed entirely, rather than replaced). The first case would be default for me.

That feature, as described, should pose no compatibility issue. I think it may not even have to change any existing code-files in the Orchard.ContentPicker module.

Tomorrow I will start working on this, because I have previous work we did to start from and adding the rest that we discussed should not be too much work. Any input and comments are appreciated.

Best,
Matteo

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

Hi,

I forgot to discuss a point in my previous comment.

How to select a content neutral content item (from any culture, not culture specific, i.e. the TS id)

• We need to select the MCI id

I would like a bit more input on it, but this is what I have in my head:
This, I think, should again be enabled/controlled by a setting. I think it would override the "list" view, in the fact that it would remove the dropdown for language selection. The list would then only show a single item for each translation set.
Q: How should I handle contents with no localization part? Should I even show them at all? I would have a further setting here for this.
With this setting enabled, the choice of localization for the selected items is actually handled when displaying. The way I would go about this is I would process things in an alternate view (but that sounds inefficient) or more likely by overriding the OnGetDisplayShape handler.
Q: How should I handle the case where the desired localization is not available? I would do as for the sub-option (see my previous comment) and have another setting to allow the user to choose.

I will work on this functionality right after the things I discussed in my previous comment. Here as well, any input and comments are appreciated.

Best,
Matteo

[HermesSbicego-Laser]

/cc @sebastienros @urbanit @jersiovic @MatteoPiovanelli-Laser
Hi all,
can we schedule next meeting for discussing open points on how localization should work in taxonomies/blogs/tags/etc? What about on Thursday 10am pst (18pm Central Europe) before triage meeting?

In the meanwhile I have a question for @sebastienros : We talked about "Culture Neutral Fields" but we didn't threat "Culture Neutral Parts": for parts things are more complex, I think it should be nice to have this feature too, maybe using or extending the cloning logic?

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

I opened #7386 because things in the localization part work different than what I expected/remembered

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

#7388 adds the dropdown to select/filter by language in the view opened by the content picker field

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

In light of #7386, @HermesSbicego-Laser and I thougth that it's probably better to add a property TranslationSetId to LocalizationPart, as was initially proposed at the meeting (i do not remember who proposed it). That would have the value of the Id of the first ContentItem in a translation set.
All new logic would be built around that, without touching the existing ones that revolve around the MasterContentItemId, to avoid problems with existings modules that might be using that.
My idea is to never again use MasterContentItemId after that, but to leave it in for compatibility.

[HermesSbicego-Laser]

Hi all,
our team de-de-briefed around previous meeting. we share our notes and considerations on ContentPickeField (we are working on it) and we tried to imagine a similar approach with taxonomies considering that we should not introduce breaking changes

De-briefing notes
Content Picker Field (CPF)

Options as discussed during online meeting
Otp1: Check culture integrity
Opt2 > Sub Opt1: Try to translate automatically

Scenario:
Opt1: true
Opt2: false

Problem: What to do with Untranslatable Contents (without LocalizationPart)?
possibility:
1. Keep them untouched, they live in CPF
2. Add Opt1.1 telling if this is an accepted behavior or not (not=Error on publish)

Scenario:
Otp1: true
Opt2: true

Problem: What happens if a translation is missing?
Possibility:
1. Keep them, save the content and notify it BUT this is nonsense for Opt1
A possible way is to threat Opt2 like an option, I mean not dependent from Opt1
SO
Options change
Opt1: ...
Opt2: ...
2. Remove them
But things change without user consent
3. Block the save/publish
This respect Opt1
4. Add an Opt3 telling what to do
SO
Options change
Opt1: ...
Opt2: ...
Opt3 > Sub Opt2 : Keep|Remove

We think we should take this approach, 'cause it supports all scenarios we talked till now
So, next in CPF Orchard Module, respecting but also extending the design:
Opt1: Try Translate (default true)
Opt1.1: Unselect item if translation is missing (default false)
Opt1.2: Unselect item if it's neutral (default false)
Opt2: Ensure language are the same (default false)
Opt2.1: Ensure selection of a culture neutral item is invalid (default false), i.e. you need to select a localizable content item

Update
Optionally: Display a drop down in front of the selector to translate the current selection in any other language.

Example
make a translation to IT(Itinerary IT)
Related POIS (CPF)
> Poi1 IT
> Poi2 en > want keep
> Video (culture neutral) > want remove
> Poi3 IT

Opt1: true (want to translate)
Opt1.1: false (want to keep untranslated)
Opt1.2: true (want to remove culture neutral)
Opt2: false (want to keep untranslated)
Opt2.1: false (as parent)

---

Taxonomy
How Craft CMS works
Taxonomies == Categories

Categories are:

1. Hierarchical
2. Are Culture Neutral
3. Terms are Localizable
   3a. When first term is created all localized version are created
   3b. When adding a language, a job adds all localized versions in each term
   3c. Hierarchy is automatically syncronized too
4. Taxonomy Field has setting to choose if:
   4a. Keep in sync with container
   4b. Force a locale

Problems with this approach
Can’t manage different hierarchy for different locales
Example:
In Europe e can sell french cheese
In USA we can’t sell french cheese

Q: Do we really want to force this behaviour in Orchard?
A: Our position is NO, cause it's wiil limit something that now is flexible

Creating automatically Localized version is not orchard default for the other contents

Problems in current Orchard behaviours
When a translation for a taxonomy is created the module creates a new taxnomy.Name + " Term" content Type, so we had a proliferation of unnecessary ContentTypes "ProductTypeTerm", "TipoProdottiTerm", "TypesDeProduitsTerm", and we could not accept this effect (collateral effect due to how taxonomies was designed)...
If you attach LocalizationPart to the 'xyz Terms Type' things do not work bacause when you make a translation

Proposed approach
LocalizationPart attached to taxonomy (Is optional)
LocalizationPartAttached automatically to “all xyz Term” Types, defined into a Site Setting

Taxonomy translation (obviously only if I have the LocalizationPart)
Example
Tax IT > Create “Tax IT Term” Type (if removes is soft deleted so we can always discover type)
> I do Translate
> Tax EN > it should not create “Tax EN Term” type but it should use “Tax IT Term” as Type

Corner case:

Q: What happens if I attach LocalizationPart on Taxonomy, later?
A: When I save a Taxonomy, It should move (and only move) only Terms of same locale to keep Locale in sync

Term translation (obviously only if I have the LocalizationPart)
Example
Tax IT > create Term:
If Term lang != Tax lang
If exists parent in same language > it should Change parent to localized parent
If does not exist parent in same language >
Dont save OR
Save as root (You can always move it to its parent later)
Should move term in the taxonomywith the same lang
If found > it does it
If not found translated taxonomy> throw an exception (AddModelError)
If Taxonomyis Culture neutral (LocalizationPart is missing) > Attach to neutral Taxonomy
TODO next: What happens when I move a Term?
Should I move also their translation version?
Keep the choice to the user? With a checkbox Try to keep hierarchy in sync

TaxonomyField translation
TaxonomyField has a TaxonomySource defined in the TaxonomyFieldSetting

Settings

Opt1: Try Translate (default true)

On creating
TaxonomyField
> I don’t know the lang so it exposes Taxonomy terms defined in field settings (as is)
On editing of a Content
TaxonomyField

If Opt1 == true > Should expose Taxonomy terms of same lang of content

If Taxonomyis translatable >

    if Has Translation, Change Taxonomy
    if Has no Translation, it sets taxonomy source to null, Warning on UI as is

If Taxonomyis not translatable > Keep Taxonomy

If terms are translatable >filter Taxonomy Terms on language
else >as is

If Opt1 == false > it exposes Taxonomy terms defined in field settings (as is)

On Saving Content
Taxonomy Field

If Opt1 == true && (Terms are Translatable || Taxonomy is Translatable) && ContentItem Is Translatable ==> Try to translate terms and removes them if missing

else ==> saves terms (as is)

Problems with current UI
When Autocomplete && User can create new terms
Our idea is: User Can create new terms only if “xyz Term” is Culture neutral

---

Blog/BlogPosts
Using same approach of Taxonomies/Terms.

If locale of Blog and BlogPost are not the same, tries to move BlogPost under a the right Blog translation but if it can't leave things untouched.

---

Tags
TBD

---

Container/Containable
TBD

[sebastienros]

@jersiovic @urbanit @Xceno

We intend to do the Taxonomy design meeting tomorrow at 9am PT, i.e. 6pm CET

[urbanit]

Unfortunately, it will be impossible for me to attend, at least the 1st hour. I will try my best to join later...

[sebastienros]

Update on Taxonomies

TERM CONTENT TYPE
Instead of creating a content type for the terms dynamically, we could first create the type, and select it when creating a new Taxonomy.

Q: Can we change the Term Content Type of a taxonomy localization?
No, because when translation an item we don't know yet it's language, hence the term type to create. We need to only be able to create in the same content type as the source taxonomy.

Localization strategies

• LocalizationPart attached to Taxonomy only
  • Each locale has different hierarchies, terms are not synchronized (terms are not translations of one another)
• LocalizationPart attached to Term type only (Figure 1)
  • This would allow the Field to display/filter all languages
  • We could have terms without actual localizations
  • We could then have the same options as the Content Item Picker
  • Each localized term has a parent from the Taxonomy's localization
    • We need the parent term to exist in the same culture, or the validation fails
• LocalizationPart attached to Taxonomy and Term (same as Fig 1)
  • That would work
  • When we localize a term, the new term's taxonomy is the one of the targeted locale
    • We have to create the Taxonomy in a specific locale before being able to create the term in this locale. Validation will be the easiest way.
  • In Fig 1 I can only create C_IT when I have the taxonomy in IT

FIGURE 1

Taxonomy named LETTERS, not localizable
Terms localizable

I can't create B_IT as there is not A_IT
When displaying the taxonomy for FR I can see all terms, in IT I can only see C_IT

• A_FR
  • B_FR
• C_FR -> C_IT

Taxonomy Field

• A. Content item is localizable
  • a. Taxononmy Localizable
    We need to show all the localized taxonomies, with a dropdown list to select one language. A setting can force the user to select terms from the taxonomy of the same language as the current content item.
  • b. Term localizable
    • i. With a setting on the field, we can automatically select the translations of the selected terms (like Content Picker Field)
    • ii. Can validate that the terms in the same language
  • c. Taxonomy & Term localizable
    • i. All from the above two options
• B. Content item is not localizable
  • a. Do whatever you want, showing all taxonomy languages

[jersiovic]

I'm just reading now @HermesSbicego-Laser notes and date for the second meeting. I will think about your notes this weekend.
Great effort guys!

[jersiovic]

@HermesSbicego-Laser @jersiovic I have concerns about the scenario where the current culture gets changed between edits of a ContentItem that has a TaxonomyField set as per setting 1.

What kind of concerns? You are worried cause not saved changes will be lost? If it is the problem I think it is not a big problem. Someone editing a non localizable content item usually doesn't need to change the culture cause there is not other translations of the same content item, he only wants to see all the UI and contents in the language he understand.

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

@jersiovic maybe I misunderstood what you proposed. I will try to explain the way I understood things, so you can see what I may have gotten wrong. Please, correct me.

Setting 1 I mentioned was for the case where the ContentType that has the TaxonomyField is not localizable (does not have a LocalizationPart): by enabling setting 1 we are causing the TaxonomyField, when we are editing a ContentItem, to only show, as available for selection, Terms whose culture is the same as the Current Culture.
Say for example I have ITEM-A that is of one such type, my Current Culture is it-IT, and in my "Sports" TaxonomyField I select the Term "Calcio". All is fine.
Now I change my Current Culture to en-US. I open ITEM-A in Edit again. My TaxonmyField "Sports" is still set to "Calcio", that is my Italian term. However, I now cannot select Italian Terms, so if I make any change, I cannot select "Calcio" again, and I am stuck with a different list of terms.

[jersiovic]

@MatteoPiovanelli-Laser Yes you are right.
An alternative could be to show the master term when the translation in current culture is not available.
But IMO this extra work is not worth because is confusing for user and also for the admin of the site to understand what is happening.
The point is the use of Setting 1 has only sense for taxonomies where you plan to have all the terms of your taxonomy translated to all available cultures. If not this settings is not useful and is weird someone is willing to use it. Maybe a tooltip in the setting saying: "Use only with taxonomies with terms translated to all available cultures" will help to avoid misunderstandings.
I think it is better to left it as you describe it: the user can't select the term because it is not on current culture. In that way the user understands that sth goes wrong with translation of that term and admin of the site the same.

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

In #7416 I implemented the LocalizationSetIds we discussed early on.

I am now using that and #7409 to build the synchronization for CultureNeutral Fields and Parts.

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

I actually have a question, because I forget what we meant by this:

• How to select a content neutral content item (from any culture, not culture specific, i.e. the TS id)

  • We need to select the MCI id

@sebastienros @jersiovic @urbanit @HermesSbicego-Laser
I don't remember what we meant by "culture neutral content item".
Isn't that just a ContentItem that does not have a LocalizationPart?
Or are we saying that an item that has a LocalizationPart can be marked as CultureNeutral?
Does that even make sense?
If that is the case, what happens to any localization it may have, or that we may create for it?

[urbanit]

Hi @MatteoPiovanelli-Laser , I think that we mean that we may need to select a specific content item (without take into account if it has localisation info attached or not, and maybe from diffrent culture...) We described the need to choose a specific content item...

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

@urbanit
That may have jogged my memory, and I think you are right.
So that is not something related to synchronization of parts and fields.

[urbanit]

I think it is more of translating/cloning issue than of synchronization.

[jersiovic]

@MatteoPiovanelli-Laser @urbanit It was related with what I wanted in an scenario where we have a non localizable content item with a content picker field pointing to localizable contents. I wanted to store in the field picker the Translation Set Id but not any concrete content item id of the translations available. The purpose was that when the pantent content item is rendered or edited the content item picker field shows the child content item with the stored Translation Set Id and same culture you are using to render the parent content item.

But if you implement Setting 1 and Setting 2 we talked previously in this thread then I don't need this.

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

@urbanit @jersiovic Ok, I understand now. Thanks.

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

Hello,

I have the synchronization working (on my machine) on a branch based on the PRs I did for LocalizationSets and Cloning. (branch: https://github.com/LaserSrl/Orchard/tree/CultureNeutralPartsAndFields)

I had to make a few changes that should not break anything. I had to add string properties to CloneContentContext, ExportContentContext and ImportContentContext to avoid synchronizing fields that should not be synchronized. For the ExportContentContextand ImportContentContextclasses, I put that property in a base class they now (in my branch) inherit from, because of the way the ContentFieldDriver works (see the Process methods).

In light what I did for the cloning fallback, I don't feel that adding a parameter to CloneContentContext to mark the fact that we are using it for a translation is enough. I would directly add Translating/Translated methods, falling back on Cloning/Cloned if not implemented, with their own TranslateContentContext. I see how that would be a mess, at least for retrocompatibility, in terms of ContentHandlers (I think I would have to do an interface like ITranslatingContentHandler, inheriting from IContentHandler, and then implement from there similarly to what is in the cloning pr for IContentCloningPartDriver) and drivers (IContentTranslatingPartDriver and so on...), but it would also allow really neat stuff.
TL;DR: I would have a Translating driver method, defaulting to Cloning, that in turn defaults to Export/Import.

@sebastienros
Do you think we'll be able, at today's meeting, to give a quick look at LocalizationSetIds and Cloning?

[sebastienros]

Yes, please demo it.

On Nov 22, 2016 7:19 AM, "Matteo Piovanelli" [email protected]
wrote:

Hello,

I have the synchronization working (on my machine) on a branch based on
the PRs I did for LocalizationSets and Cloning. (branch:
https://github.com/LaserSrl/Orchard/tree/CultureNeutralPartsAndFields)

I had to make a few changes that should not break anything. I had to
add string properties to CloneContentContext, ExportContentContext and
ImportContentContext to avoid synchronizing fields that should not be
synchronized. For the ExportContentContextand ImportContentContextclasses,
I put that property in a base class they now (in my branch) inherit from,
because of the way the ContentFieldDriver works (see the Process methods).

In light what I did for the cloning fallback, I don't feel that adding a
parameter to CloneContentContext to mark the fact that we are using it
for a translation is enough. I would directly add Translating/Translated
methods, falling back on Cloning/Cloned if not implemented, with their own
TranslateContentContext. I see how that would be a mess, at least for
retrocompatibility, in terms of ContentHandlers (I think I would have to do
an interface like ITranslatingContentHandler, inheriting from
IContentHandler, and then implement from there similarly to what is in
the cloning pr for IContentCloningPartDriver) and drivers (
IContentTranslatingPartDriver and so on...), but it would also allow
really neat stuff.
TL;DR: I would have a Translating driver method, defaulting to Cloning,
that in turn defaults to Export/Import.

@sebastienros https://github.com/sebastienros
Do you think we'll be able, at today's meeting, to give a quick look at
LocalizationSetIds and Cloning?

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[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

@sebastienros
Would it be ok if I showed the branch where I have the synchronization?
If I have to demo LocalizationSetIds and Cloning separately, it would take a while on my machine to rebuild the different branches and set things up again.
Or would you like me to demo the synchronization as well?

[sebastienros]

I don't understand what branches you are talking about, I'll just trust your judgement.

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

Hello.

After a busy stretch (and some vacation) we are back to work on localizations.

I wil try to recap where we stand and our next steps. Please, pitch in with comments.

The things that were left hanging from December, I think, are:

Localization Sets
See #7386, #7394, #7348, #7416
There are issues in the way the MasterContentItem is handled in the Localization module (in 1.10.x). In the discussions related to localization, it was proposed to have an Id describing what we called a Localization Set. This is implemented in #7416, by adding a LocalizationSetId property to the LocalizationPartRecord, and handling the logic on that.
However, in that commit we introduced an additional service (ILocalizationSetService) rather than correct the behaviour of the existing ILocalizationService. This was done for retrocompatibility: the LocalizationService has been in its (possibly bugged, see #7394) state for a long time, and I would expect that people using it have their own workarounds in place, so "simply" fixing that may break logic depending on the service.
@HermesSbicego-Laser discussed this offline with @sebastienros, and it is my understanding that this solution is troublesome in that it introduces a duplication of some functionality between the ILocalizationService (using MasterContentItemId) and the ILocalizationSetService (using LocalizationSetId). A proposed solution to this is that we can fix the behaviours revolving around the MasterContentItemId in the LocalizationService: since this would potentially be a breaking change, we would push this to the dev branch, to be reintegrated later.
*How does this sound? Should we make these changes to the LocalizationService and push a PR targeted to the dev branch (and maybe to 1.11)? *

Cloning
See #7409
The thread for that Pull Request has a long discussion on this. Briefly, I took the cloning feature that @TFleury had implemented from the dev branch, and worked on making it retrocompatible with 1.10.x so that it could be used in localizations.
The result of that is the introduction of new interfaces for drivers, in order to avoid modifying the pre-existing ones, as well as new abstract driver implementations. Using those, I introduced a fallback behaviour in the driver coordinators, so that if a part's (or field's) drivers do not implement the cloning interface, the cloning is still performed using Export/Import, as used to be the norm.
The implementation was initially done using reflection, but there is a version that does not use that (see https://github.com/LaserSrl/Orchard/tree/CloningFeatureWithFallbackNoReflection) that I can push to the PR.
I can see some issues in bringing the pr to dev, because it may break the cloning that was done there in the PR by @TFleury (even though I don't think it is actually merged in dev right now). The thing is, if the cloning/cloned methods are in the IContentPartDriver, rather than being declared in a separate interface, I am not sure how to do the fallback without using reflection.
Assuming for a moment we removed all the reflection, would this be ok to be merged in 1.10.x? Personally, I like the approach of having additional interfaces and abstract classes to add to the drivers, because it looks easy to expand upon down the line without breaking anything.

Culture Neutral Synchronization
As was discussed in an earlier post, I have an implementation for this behaviour based off Cloning and Localization Sets. Once we finalize a decision on those, I can quickly put together a PR, and then we can discuss this in more detail.

Translating
The reason we discussed and worked on the cloning was because we plan to use it to prepopulate some parts/fields when doing translations, and also to synchronize parts/fields across a Localization Set.
The idea is to modify the CloneContentContext by adding properties to it to mark a Cloning "event" as a translation and behave accordingly. This is doable. However, in light of what I did for the synchronization of CultureNeutral Parts and Fields and to remove reflection from the cloning fallbacks, I do not think this is enough. Basically, my idea is that Translating should default to Cloning, that in turns falls back on Export/Import. If we use a condition in Cloning to do Translating, than we may have a case where:

• for a part, I want a specific behaviour when Translating (e.g.: I google-translate the Title in TitlePart), but I want to leave things to their old Export/Import default when Cloning. So I implement a Cloning method in that part's driver to check for the condition based on the property of CloneContentContext and do stuff.
• When I make a new Translation, everything is fine.
• When I try to clone the part, the coordinator "sees" that its driver implement Cloning, so it does not run through the fallback.

My idea then is then to create an IContentTranslatingPartDriver , abstract ContentTranslatingPartDriver , and probably a TranslatingPartDriverCoordinator (which would require, I think, to have an IContentTranslatingHandler and a TranslatingHandlerBase) (similarly for fields), that allow Tranlsating/Translated methods, in a similar way to what was done above for Cloning. The main difference would be that I'd rather implement these classes and interfaces in the Localization module rather than in the Framework project. Note that the IContentTranslatingPartDriver would not inherit from the IContentCloningPartDriver, otherwise we would have the same issue for the fallback that I mentioned above.
How does this approach sound? I am not sure I was really able to get what I mean across, so I'd like questions and doubts about this. Even more, I'd like someone to point me to any issue I may not be seeing here.

Cheers,
Matteo

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

I'll just try to explain what I meant above when I attempted to describe the approach I would follow for the Translating/Translated. I will talk about Parts, but the same stands for Fields.

Here I just put the stuff that is in the cloning branch. The changes all happened in Orchard.Framework (besides later adding the Cloning implementations to drivers in different modules)

Here is, off the top of my head, what I would be adding in order to implement Translating/Translated, except of course a TranslatingContentContext class inheriting from ContentContextBase.

I hope this helps a bit to clarify this. Please, comment. Note however that I first need to settle on the Cloning aspects mentioned above.

Cheers,
Matteo

[BenedekFarkas]

Hey everyone, awesome stuff here! One quick remark (and I'd be happy to take part in the upcoming design process to continue this work): AutoroutePart is kind of special in a way that TitlePart affects its behaviour. If you enable the setting in AutoroutePart to regenerate it every time you change the Title, then enabling sync on TitlePart is going to mean that the AutoroutePart of the translated versions are also updated, so you'll end up with the same routes suffixed with numbers (though I'm not 100% sure about this as this automated process might be a bit different than doing this on the UI). It might not be a problem, actually, just something we may want/try to avoid.

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

I was thinking about the case that @jersiovic showed me at harvest.
He had a DynamicForm where:

• he wanted to synchronize across languages (culture neutral) the layout, in terms of e.g. buttons and textareas and so on, but
• he had some labels for the different components in the form.

The way I would do this:
Build the form with the correct layout and use tokens for the labels. The label's tokens will "point" to TextFields in the ContentItem.
This may be kind of ugly, in that you would need a ContentType with a bunch of TextFields called Label1, Label2... so that you can use the same contentType for different dynamic forms, and however many of those fields that you put in the contentType will dictate the maximum number of labels that you can have in a form.

[jersiovic]

Thank you, it is better solution than the one we use based on tokens that get translation from .po files cause in that way the user can change translated texts.
To reduce a bit the ugly feeling maybe we can use a new kind of field called DynamicLayoutLocalizationField which provides us an UI for adding all the pairs (of key-localized text) we need to have accesible from tokens from the dynamic layout in that content item. This field will provide us a way of adding translations for multiple texts in a dynamic layout. Without the need of specifically hide a bunch of fields in frontend through placement cause it by default won't render anything.

I said tor reduce "a bit" the ugly feeling ... it still remains I know :)

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

I would go one step further and have a TokenField, where we can input pairs of Token,Value.
This way it's more generic and can in principle be reused for something not localization-related.
Someplace we may wish to create custom Tokens for our contents. Validations and permissions for something like that could be problematic though, because there are "reserved" tokens we should not overwrite.

[jersiovic]

Initially I liked your idea, but after think on it more I'm not sure if it will drive to UIs difficult of understand for the user when editing a Content Item based on that Field.

[MatteoPiovanelli-Laser]

#7592 #7596
Made those two PR to carry what we have so far to dev.