This release improves compatibility with the current BuddyPress (today, it’s 1.5.3.1). It fixes a number of bugs and feature gaps that opened since our last release.

To try this, download the current Beta:

bpml.1.3.0-b2.zip

Thanks for everyone who’s helping with testing and feedback!

The bug caused the permalinks preview box to display incorrect URLs in certain cases. It’s a long story, full of drama and boring SQL. The bottom line is, that if you’re seeing incorrect URLs in the permalinks preview, when editing posts, this beta should solve it for you.

It’s not a critical bug. This error is only in the preview. The actual page URLs are fine. However, if you click on that ‘view post’ button, you’ll get to a 404 page, since the preview URL is not correct. The actual pages display normally when you navigate to their correct URLs.

How to download

To download this fix, log in to your WPML account. Go to Downloads, scroll all the way to the bottom and download the recent beta version. The beta version is a ZIP that contains other ZIPs. Unzip it locally and upload the WPML components that you’re using.

When’s the final 2.4.3 release?

We have a few more really minor bugs to clean and then we’ll release WPML 2.4.3. Besides this glitch, 2.4.3 fixes a number of other issues, which are less obvious. This permalink preview thing is very noticeable and disturbs many of you, so we released this version today.

Let us know

If you’re still seeing anything wrote, please report in the forum. Sorry for all the trouble and thanks for your patience!

Displaying Untranslated Content

It turns out that displaying untranslated content across different languages is not as simple as you’d think. WPML 2.4.2 supports this by allowing you to duplicate that content to different languages. For example, if you want English blog posts to appear in Spanish, you can duplicate them all in one go.

To see how to duplicate content in different languages, have a look at the previous post about it.

There are interesting results to this and we hope that we have them all covered.

For example, if your Spanish blog now includes English posts, you want search engines to understand what’s going on.

Google will assume that your Spanish blog contains Spanish content. We’re added a way for you to tell Google that these duplicate posts are indeed in English and where they’re coming from.

First, all Spanish posts will include the rel=”canonical” tag, linking to the original English post.

Then, your index page (where different posts are displayed) will include a mix of content in different languages. There’s a way to handle this as well.

We’ve added a new API call - wpml_get_language_information.

This returns an array that contains the locale, language name, text direction and other useful information. If you’re planning to display untranslated content, we recommend that you call this function in your theme and wrap texts in language information. This will tell Google exactly how to understand what it sees.

Translating Custom Fields using a Visual Editor (WYSIWYG)

If you’re using Types to manage custom fields and custom post types (and you should), you now have a way to create custom fields that use the native WordPress Visual editor. This means that you can have different full-featured editors for different parts of posts.

WPML 2.4.2 follows and allows your translators to use WYSIWYG editors. When you use WPML’s Translation Editor and send content to translation, WPML automatically adjusts the translation interface to display fields in the same way writers see them.

It supports single-line fields, text-area (multiple lines) and now, also WYSIWYG fields.

SEO Love with Per-Language Sitemaps

This version of WPML also includes a fix for a very old problem. When you use languages-per-domains, you’ll need a separate XML sitemap to give to Google. If your single sitemap includes all pages, in all languages, Google rejects it.

WPML 2.4.2 adds support for creating per-domain sitemap with Yoast’s WordPress SEO plugin (which we use and recommend).

When you use WPML 2.4.2 together with WordPress SEO (version 1.1.1 and above), you’ll get individual sitemaps – one per language.

Open your sitemap_index.xml and you’ll see links to the different sitemaps per type and language. It will look like this:

http://wpml.local/post-sitemap.xml

http://wpml.local/page-sitemap.xml

http://wpml.local/category-sitemap.xml

http://fr.wpml.local/post-fr-sitemap.xml

http://fr.wpml.local/page-fr-sitemap.xml

http://fr.wpml.local/category-fr-sitemap.xml

http://de.wpml.local/post-de-sitemap.xml

http://de.wpml.local/page-de-sitemap.xml

http://de.wpml.local/category-de-sitemap.xml

http://es.wpml.local/post-es-sitemap.xml

http://es.wpml.local/page-es-sitemap.xml

http://es.wpml.local/category-es-sitemap.xml

In the Google Webmasters console, you need to submit all the sitemaps for each language. So, for instance, in our Spanish domain, we’ll need to submit:

http://es.wpml.local/post-es-sitemap.xml

http://es.wpml.local/page-es-sitemap.xml

http://es.wpml.local/category-es-sitemap.xml

It’s been a pleasure working with Joost on this functionality. You can expect more great stuff for multilingual SEO in the near future.

Bugs Fixed

The joy is never complete without a few bugs to crush. In this release, we’ve significantly improved handling duplicate slugs. This is something that we added to WPML 2.4.1, but had some glitches in some cases. Now, it looks like all cases are handled.

We also included fixes for everything reported in the forum until now. I you have anything that’s not working as expected, don’t hold hack. Let us know about it.

Oh, and I almost forgot, Happy WordPress 3.3! (yes, WPML has been WP 3.3 compatible for a few weeks now)

Remember how you’d like your blog posts to appear in different languages (but without accidentally switching language) and how you wished you didn’t have to duplicate stuff when translation is not needed?

WPML 2.4.2 does all this, and more!

We talked about it a couple of months ago and now it’s ready for your testing pleasure. It’s very difficult to display content in a different language. This causes a host of issues, especially with keeping navigation in the right language.

Instead, we’ve added a new content duplication mechanism. This will allow you to create the same content for different languages, without sweating over it. Just choose what to duplicate and WPML keeps all translations in-sync with the original.

This means that you can blog, setup products and create your portfolio in just one language and have it displayed in all language.

The new content duplication logic is part of the Translation Management module, so it’s only available if you’re using the Multilingual CMS package.

Duplicating Content from the Editor

When you edit any content (post, page or custom types), you’ll see this new set of check-boxes in the Translate yourself section. Choose the languages you want to duplicate to and click on the Duplicate button at the bottom.

Duplicating content from within the editor

WPML creates the same content in the languages you’ve selected. Whenever you edit the original, duplicates will update as well.

If you later decide to translate these duplicates yourself, click on the pencil icon to edit them. There, WPML shows you that they are duplicates. Click on the button to translate them individually and start editing.

Batch-Duplicating Using the Translation Dashboard

When you want to duplicate a large amount of content, all at once, use WPML’s Translation Dashboard.

Duplicating content via the Translation Dashboard

Choose the content to duplicate. Next to each language, there’s a new option to duplicate. Click on Send content and you’re done.

It doesn’t matter if you’re selecting content from the Translation Dashboard or from edit pages. You can later edit that content and make it independent or turn existing translations (which are actual duplicate content) into duplicates.

WPML Tells Google Where the Original Is

In case you don’t know it, WordPress has a way of telling search engines where content originates from. The rel=”canonical” tag indicates the original URL of every piece of content. This way, if it appears in several URLs, search engines know where to list it on.

Since now, WPML knows that duplicate content is indeed duplicate, it communicates this information. The rel=”canonical” tag will point to the URL of the default language.

This way, Google doesn’t mistake you for trying to SPAM it and always knows where the original content is.

Download and Test

As always, you can get Beta versions from your WPML account.

Login to your account, click on Downloads and scroll all the way down.

We’re looking for feedback about this new workflow. If you’re running a site that needs extensive content duplication, we suggest that you take this new feature for a test run and let us know how it’s working for you.

This is a maintenance release, without new features, except that it works with the current BuddyPress version. This is still a major change, as many hooks and filters have moved, as well as different output in BuddyPress 1.5.1.

To get this release, head over to the BuddyPress Multilingual page in the WordPress plugins repository.

We say this before any upgrade – please backup your database before upgrading. Although there’s no database migration, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Like BuddyPress Multilingual? Leave a comment here and don’t forget to return to the download page and indicate that it’s working for you.

From all the folks behind WPML, have a good weekend, wherever you are!

This time, the bugs list is relatively modest. We changed the logic in some places to allow large sites with many users to run with less memory. WPML loaded the entire table of users and posts in several odd places. This is no longer the case and now much less memory is needed on these specific Admin pages. This was something that we actually found on our own site, as it grows bigger and busier every day.

Other bugs were related to language redirect cookies for Safari, better styling for the language switcher in menus, translation for author descriptions and the title of our own languages widget.

And now, for the really fun stuff…

Duplicate post names (slugs) for different languages

I think that this has been the most frequently requested feature, starting with WPML 0.9.3. Now, you can have pages like:

• /blog/
• /es/blog/
• /de/blog

It’s especially important when pages receive the names of products. Then, you really don’t want to have something like:

• /sony/
• /es/sony-2/ (ouch)

For a while now, WPML resolved first the language and only then the post. This fix hooks to the WordPress function that adds the integer suffix and changes it so that it too only checks for pages in the same language.

If you want to rename existing content in your site, simply edit the slugs. WordPress will now permit having translations with the same name and slug.

Custom Types and Fields Plugin

In case you’re interested, we haven’t completely forgotten about our plugin for managing custom types and fields. In fact, it’s ready for release. We’re just ironing out a few last issue with the new website and it’s up. I’ll write all about it in the next post.

WPML running on WordPress 3.3

Of course, we’re not suggesting to anyone to use the Beta WordPress 3.3 or our Beta version for live sites. But, it’s a very good idea to start testing your sites with the upcoming WordPress 3.3. For this, you’ll need WPML 2.4.1 Betas.

This current beta has no functional changes (new functions or bug fixes) over WPML 2.4.0. The only changes are for WordPress 3.3 compatibility.

To download this beta, login to your WPML account, click on Downloads and scroll to the bottom. You’ll need to download the current Beta package. Then, unzip it locally. This will give you WPML core and the add-on plugins. You can upload them to your server (or localhost) and use for your testing.

Tried it? Leave a comment here!

I wrote about the new features in the release-candidate post, but here a quick reminder:

• Menu Synchronization – no more need to manually build menus in different languages, WPML can build them for you
• Filter by Parent in the Translation Dashboard – easily select groups of child pages, or posts by category for translations
• Language Switcher in Menu – add WPML’s language switcher to WordPress menus
• Author Names Translation Optional – choose which profiles to translate via the String Translation screen
• Translation for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category – the default category can have a meaningful name in different languages
• Full Support for Types and Views – WPML and our new custom data plugin work perfectly together

Along with these new features, we also fixed a handful of bugs, so this upgrade is highly recommended. As always, you should backup your database before upgrading – just in case.

Getting This Upgrade

Normally, you should see this upgrade in your WordPress admin, in the plugins section. For the auto-upgrade to work, you’ll need to enter your subscription email and key. You can also upgrade manually by downloading this version from your WPML account.

What Next?

Our immediate priority is to make sure that WPML is fully compatible with WordPress 3.3, before the release candidate comes out (and way before the final WP 3.3 release is ready).

WP 3.3 includes new and exciting features which we need to respond to. This ranges from cosmetic, but important, changes in the Admin layout to much improved URL resolution. I’ll write more about WP 3.3 compatibility as soon as we have something.

Then, we’ll be back to our planned development and will add the anticipated support for displaying untranslated content.

We Love Feedback

Please let us know how you like this upgrade.  Of course, if you need any technical help, the forum is the place to go. For ideas, suggestions and just plain feedback, leave comments here.

Menu Synchronization

Menus are great and WPML allows translation them. But, what do you do with a complex menu, which appears in 5 languages?

English menu (note the new link to synchronize menus)

Until now, you had to create translations for that menu and manually populate. No longer. Now, WPML can do this for you. Go to WPML->Menu sync. You’ll see how the menus in other languages compare with the menu in the default language.

Menu Sync - WPML shows what needs update in menus

Click on the Sync button. If other menus are missing, WPML will create them. If they already exist, WPML will update them.

Generated French menu

This synchronization doesn’t just overwrite the translated menus. If you already have translated menus, where you made some manual edits, WPML will just update them, retaining your edits.

Filter by Parent in the Translation Dashboard

We translate much of WPML.org to four languages, but not all. There is a ton of content which doesn’t make sense to translate. We always had a tough time telling which pages need translation, in the sections that we know we want to translate.

So, we’ve added a filter by parent. Go to the Translation Dashboard and you’ll see a ‘parent’ in the filter section. You can choose to filter items according to their parent.

Filter by parent in the Translation Dashboard

For pages, it’s the parent page. For posts, it’s the category. And now, you can see everything under a specific parent and fish-out those items that need translation.

Language Switcher in Menu

This has been a popular request since WordPress menus started. WPML 2.4.0 lets you insert the language switcher to your menu. Go to WPML->Languages and look for the option to add a language switcher to the menu.

Language switcher in menu option

It will look like another menu item, but include the languages. No more hacking needed to achieve this!

Menu with language switcher

Author Names Translation Optional

Sites that have thousands of users (like wpml.org) will notice that many entries in the String Translation table include author names. This isn’t a huge problem, but creates a load on DB queries and makes the String Translation screen loaded with… junk. Sometimes, you want to translate user names, but not always.

We’ve added  an option for you to choose which users get translated. Go to WPML->String translation and look under ‘more option’.

Choosing which users to translate

This way, you can translate the names of writers, but not the names of those thousands of subscribers.

Translation for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Until now, the ‘untranslated’ category was called ‘untranslated @es’ (in Spanish). Now, you’ll see proper translation and can later rename it if you like. WPML 2.4.0 comes built-in with translation for many languages, so the untranslated categories will already get the correct names. For existing sites, this wouldn’t rename automatically, but you can edit yourself.

Full Support for Synchronizing Custom Fields for Translations

There isn’t any screenshot to show for this feature, as it’s a set of new API calls. I’ll write about them, in details, when we release Types, which uses this API for custom-fields translation. Of course, we’ll also work with other authors to help them use it in themes and plugins.

Bugs and Performance

We’ve spent a large amount of time cleaning up bugs that were reported in the forum. As WPML matures, these bugs become harder to catch, as they only appear in very specific cases. Thanks to Daniel, our new support manager, we were able to pinpoint these tough nuts.

Among the star bugs, we had issues with categories in WordPress 3.0.x, issues with non-hierarchical taxonomy and a very illusive problem when changing custom posts to translatable.

We also managed to streamline DB usage by reducing the size of the translation table and caching SQL operations. This will improve execution time and memory consumption for some sites – especially large ones.

Download and Test

You’re welcome to download WPML 2.4.0 RC1 from your WPML account. Login, click on Downloads and scroll to the bottom. It’s in the Beta package. We have done a lot of testing on this version and it’s already running on our own site. We’re looking to go live soon and your help testing it would be great.

BTW – we wrote about handling untranslated content. This is next on our plate.

Since WPML went commercial, running e-commerce sites was #1 on our list of priorities. Now, WPML and WPEC run smooth together, providing an unparalleled user-experience for site-developers, shop-owners and visitors.

Multilingual E-Commerce

To build an e-commerce site with WPML and WP E-Commerce, you’ll need:

1. WPEC 3.8.6 or higher – get it from GetShopped.org
2. WPML 2.3.4 or higher – login to your WPML account for download
3. WPEC Multilingual – download from the button below

wp-e-commerce-multilingual.0.2.zip

(updated Aug 8th)

Multilingual e-commerce sites have some unique requirements that can’t be found in either WPML or WPEC alone. For example, when visitors check-out products in any language, inventory and shipping must use a single version of the product. Or, when switching languages in the middle of the checkout process, everything must update together.

The glue plugin, WPEC Multilingual, takes care of these special requirements. It uses hooks and filters that the WPEC added for us and makes all this magic possible.

Bug Fixes and Other Improvements

Many of these fixes came as a result of debugging WPML with WPEC, as it got us into corner cases that we didn’t consider before. Other bugs were reported in the forum.

• Incorrect URLs for certain custom post types in language switcher
• Hide draft elements from the language switcher
• Admin language switcher display position in WP 3.2.1
• icl_link_to_element returns only published items
• Fixed bugs in XML-RPC publishing for custom posts
• Synchronize post dates between translations
• Translation editor cannot change post slug after publishing
• Custom field sync works with AJAX field update
• Fixed a bunch of PHP warnings in certain configurations
• Notification emails sent in the correct language of the recipient (not the sender)

Need Help?

For WPEC-specific issues, please post in the e-commerce section in our forum:

http://forum.wpml.org/forum.php?id=9

This helps communicate better with other folks who are running a similar setup as your.