Multilingual Configuration for eeSiteKit
eeSiteKit fully supports two different methods of multilingual content publishing. Before you start configuring your website for more than one language you may want to consider which method will best serve the needs of your site’s visitors.
Dedicated Channel
The Dedicated Channel method creates one or more Channels of a website where the content is only published in one language (typically in an Alternate Language). This is commonly used when most of a website’s content is published in the Host Language, and only a few pages will be published in an Alternate Language.
This is a popular method when you don’t have the resources to translate all of the content of your website but still want to offer some translated content in the site.
You may see an example of a Dedicated Channel by visiting the Deutsch Channel of eeSiteKit’s demo website. While most of the demo website’s content is in English, the Deutsch Channel’s content is only published in German.
When using the Dedicated Channel method, you have the choice of keeping your website’s navigation in the Host Language at all times, or allowing it to be translated when visitors are viewing the Alternate Language content. In our demo site, we chose to let the navigation translate.
Blended Channel
The Blended Channel method allows for any or all Channels of a website to be published with content in two or more languages. With this method, the website displays published content in one language at a time with the ability to switch between languages if needed.
This is the more advanced method of publishing multilingual content as it really requires that all site content, navigation and forms be translated.
You may see an example of a Blended Channel by visiting the Multilingual Channel of eeSiteKit’s demo website. Note that the content of this Blended Channel is all translated, and you may switch languages by using the language swap links in the right column of the page. Also note that when you switch languages, all of the site’s navigation and links translate.
Achieving this level of multilingual functionality requires a little extra work when setting up the website and when publishing, but it can also yield great results if you have a multilingual audience for your goods, services or information.
This section of the User Guide is incomplete. We are working on it, but it may be a few weeks before its completed. If you are starting a multi lingual site project, please introduce yourself and let us know you are working on a bilingual or multilingual site in the Support Forums. We will contact you and help you complete your configuration.