To translate your gallery, make sure that the String Translation module is enabled.

Translating strings in NextGen Gallery

All the gallery strings are under context ‘plugin_ngg‘. Don’t confuse this with the ‘plugin nextgen-gallery’ strings. The later ones are for translation of strings in NGG’s PHP, not in your galleries.

The string names will tell you what you’re translating. For example, gal_2_title is the title of gallery 2. pic_6_alttext is the ALT tag for picture 6. You probably get the idea…

The image and gallery texts will show according to the language of the page it’s been inserted to. You can insert the same gallery to pages in different languages and you’ll see different texts. The images remain the same.

We put together a small working example here:

http://subsite1.wpml.org/fr/french-album/

You can play with it and see how the gallery texts update when you change language.

What next?

We think that this round covers everything. The author of NGG is waiting for our OK to include these changes in NGG code.

Please help us test. When you tell us that it’s OK for you, we’ll pass the update on to NGG author and it will become part of the code for good.

WPML became a commercial product in 2011. While last year, we focused on adding new features, our goal for this year is broader. We’re seeing major trends in the WordPress landscape, and intend for WPML to play a key role in them.

WordPress Trends in 2012

While WordPress became the dominant CMS in 2010 / 2011, we think that 2012 will see WordPress maturing as web-application. We’re already seeing a lot more focus on e-commerce, listing and review sites and other complete applications.

There are already new and exciting e-commerce plugins, joining the older and more well-known ones. It’s been great for everyone. As JigShop, WooCommerce and MarketPress came out, WP E-Commerce developers had to step up and revamp their code. No matter which e-commerce plugin you’re using today, you’re getting a much better product than you did a year ago.

Besides e-commerce, plugins that help customize WordPress have gotten extremely popular. Almost any WordPress site today uses something for custom fields and custom post types management. This means that we’re all using WordPress far beyond pages and posts.

There’s also a wide selection of great themes, that help build complex sites without any coding. Just drag the elements you want, where you want them, and you’re good to go.

Our part is to provide you with a seamless integration experience, allowing you to create complex multilingual WordPress sites, with all these great features.

Mobile Everywhere

Mobile web and touch screens are no longer somewhere over the horizon. They’re here now and they’re here to stay. If my 8 year-old knows how to operate a tablet – I can say for sure that that’s a winner.

We need to make sure that everything that runs well on a PC, also looks great on a tablet. For WPML, it means making it easy for admin and visitors to choose their language.

Never Forget the Basics

Trends are great, but we must never neglect our basics. These are the features that got WordPress and WPML to become so popular. To stay ahead, we need to always keep these basics in mind and in the code:

• Stability – it needs to work without bugs or glitches
• Security – it must be bullet-proof secure
• Compatibility – it needs to work with other plugins and themes
• Performance – it must run lightening fast and stay lean
• Ease-of-use – it must be intuitive, even without having to read Help documents

Stability, security and compatibility have been our main focus in 2011. We’re looking to boost performance even more in the next major release of WPML.

Our own sites run pretty fast because they’re already optimized. If you build a theme from scratch, you can guarantee its performance. We see most performance issues with complex themes that were not exactly designed to work with WPML. In the near future, I’ll write more and explain about how to check if your site’s performance is great and if there are things to improve. Then, we’ll be happy to receive test cases from you, showing where there are bottlenecks.

Also, we recognize the fact that as we added more and more features to WPML, its interface might have gotten a bit complex. We’ll be doing a major round of usability improvements and we’ll be happy to get feedback about it.

Our Goals for 2012

Full Compatibility with all Major E-Commerce Plugins

I know that we’ve been through this before and not always with the best results, but we feel that things are going much better now.

We’ve already got good compatibility with MarketPress and WooCommerce. JigShop is coming next and should be available in the next plugin release.

We finally managed to nail down the major issues with WP E-Commerce. With a bit of help from you guys, I hope that we can push our suggestions into WPEC code and be finally able to announce that it’s working great together.

Allow Building Complex Multilingual Sites

It took us six months, and now, we’re ready with Types and Views (still in Beta, but looking great). These two plugins are our solution for running complex WordPress sites, which are fully WPML compatible.

The upcoming Types and Views versions will allow to build things, never before seen with WordPress. We’re taking powerful features from web-development platforms, such as Ruby-on-Rails and implementing them inside Types and Views. We’ll try to give all that power, but without a fraction of the complexity. Yes, it’s a challenge.

This will allow building complex sites that have interconnected content types, inline lists of related data and other goodies. I’ll write more about that, as we approach the finish line.

For multilingual sites, the challenge is to make everything easily translatable. Since we’re using WPML, Types and Views for our own sites, we’ll make sure that this happens.

Run Faster

We want to see multilingual sites run faster, without having to spend days optimizing database queries. This means that WPML will pre-load and cache results and avoid hitting the database for content that it already loaded once. This is easier said than done. With different themes using the database very differently, we’ve got a lot of analysis and design work, before we can get down to coding.

Be Simpler

Simple can mean many things. Just having a minimalistic GUI doesn’t always mean it’s easy to quickly find what you’re looking to do. We want to make the entire user-experience around WPML better. This includes the site administration, content entry for writers and editors and translation process for translators.

We’re pretty used to how things are, so we’ve kinda developed a blind spot to usability issues. Suggestions are welcome

See You There!

We’re very happy about how 2011 ended and we want to make sure that 2012 turns out even better. A lot of the new development in WPML was due to your feedback. Keep working with us to make WordPress, WPML and your projects the best they can be.

If you have ideas or suggestions, leave comments here. For technical help, check out our technical forum.

If you live in Japan or China and want to work with us, we’d love to talk with you. This can be either full-time or part-time position.

Your responsibilities would be:

• Helping in dedicated Japanese / Chinese sections of our forum
• Representing us in local WordPress events (we pay all expenses)
• Helping WPML marketing efforts in your country and getting a 30% affiliate commission for that

This job will have a fixed pay and performance-based payment.

If you’re interested, please use our contact form and tell us a bit about yourself.

The nice thing was that WooCommerce uses WordPress in a very clean way. This allowed us to turn it multilingual without resorting to any hacks.

We added a few filters to WooCommerce, created a new glue plugins called ‘WooCommerce Multilingual’ and added a bit of support for the new functionality in WPML.

To try all this, you’ll need to download:

• WooCommerce 1.4 or above (it’s always a good idea to use the most recent version)
• WooCommerce Multilingual
• The recent WPML version (from your WPML account)

How it works

The glue plugin doesn’t have any GUI and there’s nothing to configure. It hooks to WooCommerce and makes it multilingual.

You’ll need to add translations for the standard shop pages and add the same shortcodes to them. This will let the checkout and other standard WooCommerce pages appear.

There’s a complete WooCommerce Multilingual Users Guide which you should read when you get started.

Translating products

Go to a product page. You’ll see the languages box. Add on the + icons to add translation. WPML automatically synchronizes the product attributes, such as cost, weight and other properties that should be the same for all languages.

You can also use WPML’s Translation Dashboard to mark products for translation and send all at once.

Shipping and inventory tracking

Shop owners will see all orders going through on the products in the default language. When visitors add products to the cart, WPML will convert them to the products in the default language. It coverts back to the current language for display purposes.

This means that you’re tracking inventory only once per product, no matter in which language it was ordered.

Email notifications

WPML will set the locale to the client’s language when you send your client emails. Meaning, if a client ordered a product when viewing it in French, the client will receive the notification emails in French. For this to happen, you need to have the .mo files for WooCommerce in each language.

Feedback?

This release is the result of weeks of planning and development. We’re eager to receive your feedback and hear about how it’s working for you. Once we know that things are good and complete, this will go into the WooCommerce official code and continue being maintained there.

The Domain Mapping and WPML tutorial include complete, step-by-steps for you to follow. There’s also a small patch for Domain Mapping, making it work correctly with WordPress 3.3.

Domain Mapping Configuration

Domains list

http://wpml.org/documentation/essential-multilingual-plugins/multilingual-site-network-with-domain-mapping/

Domain Mapping is a pretty complex plugin. Just like WPML, it also manipulates the URL rewrite rules for WordPress.

Domain Mapping works on the ‘domain’ part, while WPML works on the ‘page’ page. Theoretically, there should be no interaction between the plugins and we were happy to confirm that, using WordPress 3.3.

You’re welcome to leave comments here. For complete tech support, I suggest opening threads in our technical support forum.

How this works

qTranslate holds all content in the same post, taxonomy or custom field. WPML created different items per language. Without going into a discussion about what’s better, it’s clear that the migration process needs to address this.

Instead of one post that includes language meta tags, you’ll get several posts – one per language. Same goes for tags, categories (taxonomy in general) and custom fields.

Once this data migration is complete, a whole round of content fixup is needed. The importer will go through the new posts and update internal links. This way, existing content keeps pointing to valid posts and not to non-existing content.

The good

When you migrate to WPML, you’re going to get some immediate benefits. For starters, you get to use a plugin that’s actively maintained and enjoys a team of developers working on it full-time. You also get high-response support for each and every issue that you encounter.

To demonstrate this, WPML is always ready several weeks in advance of any new WordPress release.

Then, there’s SEO. Since WPML uses different posts per language, these posts come with their unique URLs. No more having the same post name in the URL. Now, each language gets its own unique permalink. That’s pretty major for search engines.

There are also nice things like having comments separated for each language. Most consider this a very important feature, other see it as an issue.

The bad

No matter how much we try, this import process is not going to be 100% automated. Unless you’re running a very simple blog, with just posts, tags and categories, something is not going to be included in this migration and you’ll have to transfer that data manually.

We’re doing our best to minimize this, so that 95% of the work is done for you. Due to the way qTranslate works, there’s an endless range of creative solutions that people have chosen to get things done.  Many of these are great hacks, but will not survive our import process.

We hope that the import process will cover the bulk of the work for you, so that your remaining migration tasks are reasonable.

How you can help

If you want to see this migration process become robust and comprehensive, we’ll need your help with testing data. Leave messages here, describing different cases and let us know you can send test databases. If you can also provide URLs to existing sites that you’re considering migrating, it will help us get a better picture. We’ll contact you directly to get those DBs from you.

We can’t promise the import process will cover everything, but we’ll certainly give it our best efforts.

Setting Up

Types creates three things:

• Custom post types
• Custom taxonomy
• Custom fields (meta boxes)

First, download Types from the WordPress plugins repository, install and activate it. Once setup, you’ll see this main menu:

Types menu

Click on Custom Types and Taxonomies to setup your own post and taxonomy types.

New custom post type

In the WordPress world, every piece of content is a post. This includes the standard posts and pages. When you want to add your unique content type, you’re creating a custom post type.

Taxonomy is the glue that connects related content together. List tags and categories group together related posts, so does custom taxonomy connect together custom post types. Custom taxonomy can connect any post type, including the standard types.

Click on Custom Fields to add meta-boxes to the WordPress editor.

New custom-fields group

Types arranges custom fields in groups. It lets you select which group to display on different content types.

Groups have fields. You can choose standard fields, such as single-line and multi-line text inputs, or more complex fields such as file, image or Skype contact.

Click on Add a custom fields group. Give it a name and an optional description and add fields by clicking on their names from the list at the top-right.

Adding a custom field

Once you’ve added a field, you can configure it. Give it a name and a description. Each type of field has its own unique setup.

This is how a group looks like on Edit screens:

Types custom fields in the content editing screen

You can see various types of fields, including text, check-box and image uploads.

Displaying Custom Fields

You’ll notice that there’s a shortcode hint below different fields in the editor screens. These shortcodes allow to include the fields in the page content. When authors enter these shortcodes to the text, Types will replace them with the field content.

Custom field display is different for each field type. Text fields simply output their value. Check-boxes and radio groups will display the respective text for their state. Image fields output the images (allowing you to choose image dimensions) and other special fields have unique display options.

Authors can use the T icon, at the top of edit screens to choose from available fields to insert.

Inserting custom fields to content

If you want to add fields to templates (so that they appear on all pages of the same type), you can use Views, to generate dynamic templates, or edit the template PHP files and use Types API calls to display fields.

Data Validation

Fields can also validate user-input. You can set any field as ‘required’. Other fields have other validation options. For example, numeric fields will check that users only enter numbers and email fields will validate for well-formatted email addresses. You can enable or disable each of these validations, per field.

When authors enter content and validation fails, Types will highlight the incorrect fields and instruct users to edit them.

Custom-Field Translation Options

Types lets you choose what to do when translating content that includes these custom fields. By default, WPML will translate text fields and copy non-text fields. This means that images, check-boxes and numeric values will auto-synchronize between the original content and translations and texts will get translated.

Multilingual Admin Screens

WPML lets different users have different admin languages. This is especially useful if there are different people configuring and running the site.

All the texts that you enter in Types appear in WPML’s String Translation screen. This includes names, descriptions and labels and field values.

Translating Types string in the String Translation screen

Once you translate these texts in the String Translation screen, users will see the localized languages on the WordPress Admin, as well as on public pages.

Translating Custom-Type Content

The central location for controlling what is multilingual is in WPML->Translation Management->Multilingual content setup. There, you will see all the custom types that you’ve added (post types, taxonomy and fields). Once you make custom types translatable, you’ll get the familiar translation controls in their lists screen. You’ll also be able to choose the in the Translation Dashboard.

WPML automatically adjusts the translation editor and according to the setup of different custom fields.

Custom fields in the Translation Editor

When you translate content that includes a custom field, you’ll notice that the name and description show for them. This allows translators to understand what they’s translating and where the text goes to.

Download, Cost and Support

Types is free. You can download it from the WordPress plugin repository:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/types/

You’re welcome to read tutorials and complete reference documentation in Types & Views website.

Views is a powerful compliment to Types, allowing to display custom data without any coding. We’re offering commercial support for both Types and Views through the support forums on http://wp-types.com.

Views and expert support for both plugins for one year costs $49 (USD).

In order to keep up with demand for expert support, we’re looking for developers, who want to join our support and applications team. Our support is not just about answering questions in the forum. We’re looking for developers, who can help clients build great websites, debug problems and build new features.

About Working with Us

OnTheGoSystems is a global business. We all work from our homes and communicate using the Web. Skype, email and Basecamp are our office. We work flexible hours and make sure to leave enough time to enjoy life.

Our team is currently spread across Argentina, Romania, Serbia, Australia, Spain, Ukraine and Israel. We welcome people from any country, as long as they can meet a few requirements:

Be extra nice.

Yup, we intend to enjoy our work time, as well as our play time.

Speak English.

Almost none of us is a native English speaker, but we all use English to communicate. Our clients also expect us to write and speak English. Having another language is always an advantage.

Breath PHP and eat WordPress.

I hope that this doesn’t require additional explanation.

Be responsible and self-motivated.

It’s impossible to run a distributed business unless everyone thinks big.

The Specifics of These Jobs

We’re looking to hire three new developers in this round. All three will work in support and applications. They will help our clients build complex sites using Views, Types and WPML. Sometimes, this help includes answering a couple of simple questions. In other times, it means working together with the client, to produce fully working code.

When there’s the tiniest sign of bug, we need to reproduce it, investigate and fix. We expect our support people to do this.

Although we work flexible hours, we tend to keep to 9 hours per day, 5 days per week. We respect national holidays and give additional vacation days.

Referral Commission

If you’re perfect for this job, we want you. If you know someone else who might be it, let us know.

We’ll pay you $500 (USD) when the person you referred is accepted.

Apply or Send a Referral

In the last 5 months, we’ve been working on two major new plugins for managing and displaying custom data in WordPress. We’re less than a month away from release and it’s time to make an informal introduction.

Types – Defines Custom Data

First, we need to tell WordPress what our custom data is. Types allows us to setup custom post types, taxonomy and custom fields.

Types lets you define and edit custom post types and taxonomy, and the relationship between them.

List of custom types and taxonomies

When you edit custom types, you get the full details, including the name, description, menu properties and all the little texts that you can choose.

Editing custom types

The real fun begins when you start setting up custom fields for your newly created types.

Types contains complete custom-field management for WordPress. You can setup meta-boxes, choose which fields to list in them and on which content types these boxes should display. In case you’re wondering, we borrowed some great ideas from the popular Drupal CCK module for our Types.

Editing a group

Types includes all the ‘regular’ field types (like text fields, textarea, radio and checkboxes), as well as special fields, like image, URL, phone number, etc.

Fields include built-in data validation. When you insert a field, Types can check that user-data is valid before it can be saved.

Also, you can specify what to do with translations, for each field. You can choose if WPML will translate that field, copy it, or do nothing.

Editing a field

Once it’s all setup, users see your new, shiny, custom edit screen. This is how the new ‘Program Attributes’ box, which we defined above, looks like:

Custom fields input box

Views – Displays Custom Data

So far, so good. We can tell WordPress which custom types we want, what meta-boxes to create and which fields they will contain.

Users can now enter custom data to the site. But, how do we display it?

This is where Views comes to play. Views is a comprehensive package and displaying data in your site. It includes two main module:

• Dynamic Templates – creates child templates without editing PHP files
• Data Lists – queries and displays data

The templates engine is responsible for the display of single pages. It lets you create a page template using HTML and shortcode (using a GUI). You’ll be able to create complex page templates for standard and custom data types without learning WordPress API and without using PHP. All the standard and custom fields appear in the GUI and you can customize with different properties.

View Template

The lists engine is even more powerful. We call them Views. A View includes a query generator, which lets you load lists of data. It also includes a render engine for iterating through this data and displaying it. You can insert a View into any WordPress content, or use as a widget.

View editor

Views is a big plugin and deserves a post of its own. I’ll write about it, with full details, very soon.

Fully WPML Compatible

Of course, Types and Views are designed for WPML compatibility.

When you create new data types, it’s fully multilingual. The edit pages will show in the correct language. Every piece of text that you enter to define a custom type will appear in WPML’s String Translation screen.

When you insert a View into your content or use a Dynamic Template, you’ll discover that it’s multilingual as well. You can translate strings using WPML’s String Translation and meta-HTML using the Translation Editor.

When, Where and How Much?

Right now, we’re at the testing phase for both Types and Views. We’re building reference designs that use Types, Views and WPML and are going through issues that come up. We should have a complete clean release in about a month.

Types will be a free plugin, available to download through the WordPress plugins repository. Views will be a paid plugin. The planned cost will be $50. We’ll have final details as we release both plugins.

As soon as we have beta versions, I’ll write more about it. We’ll be giving away free Views accounts for the first folks to test and use it.

We’re in the midst of a new major project and want to come out with a polished and beautiful product. For that, we need a graphics designer, to accompany the project.

The work can start right now, but we can wait for a couple of weeks too (not much longer than this).

We will need:

• Complete website design
• Design for key graphics (like icon)
• Work on internal site pages, like documentation, tutorials and purchase pages
• Design of the plugin Admin pages, to make them compatible with WordPress design style, but still beautiful and functional

This is a large project and will require iterative work. I would prefer to hire a designer on retainer and pay for actual time spent, rather than on a project basis. It’s impossible for us to write a complete spec upfront. We’ll pass what we have to the designer and start testing creative ideas. Then, we’ll have a complete spec.

We’re not rich, but we’ll be happy to pay well and make it worth your time. Our goal, as always, is to get top-notch work.

Interested? Got the talent and resources? Write to us (sorry, job closed), tell us about yourself and we’ll be in touch. When you send us samples, focus on developer-related work that you did.

To be clear – we’re looking for a graphics designer. We’ll be taking care of all the coding work (PHP, HTML, CSS). We need a top-notch graphics-designer.