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Multilingual NextGen Gallery

Announcements
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We’re working with NextGen Gallery author on making NextGen fully translatable. This is a first test release of the updated NGG plugin.

For those who’re not using NextGen Gallery, know that this is a powerful gallery management plugin for WordPress. It allows managing images separately from WordPress content and inserting galleries and albums anywhere in the site.

NGG already included facilities for translating strings (like image description, alt, etc.). The problem is, there’s no way you can tell what you’re translating. If the gallery includes 5 images, it’s kinda OK, but for larger galleries, it makes managing translations impossible.

Knowing What You’re Translating

We’ve enhanced NGG’s i18n function to include names. These names allow to identify what’s being translated.

For example, you’ll see this:

Translating texts in NextGen Gallery

Each string for translation has a name. That name describes what you’re translating.

So, when you see pic_2_alttext, you know that you’re translating the ALT tag for picture #2.

Additionally, all NextGen texts are grouped under the context ngg_plugin. You can translate them separately from other Admin texts.

Development Version

These changes are fresh out of the oven. We’ve tested them and it all looks good, but we’re no NextGen experts.

This is the updated NGG code:

nextgen-gallery.zip

To use it, you’ll need the development version of WPML. It’s not quite ready for production sites, but fine for testing purposes. It’s available only for WPML clients.

If you’re a registered WPML client, leave a message here and we’ll email it to you.

How to Test

All you need to do is save the NGG gallery. WPML then scans the images and registers the strings for translation. Then, head over to WPML->String Translation and filter by context ngg_gallery.

Add the gallery to a translated page and you should see all the image texts translated.

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45 Responses to “Multilingual NextGen Gallery”

  4. This is great news guys! I have given up working with NGG, because of the lack of multilingual support. With this implementation it is very likely to become my favorite gallery plugin again for sites that have lots of images in galleries and albums!
    If I can help, please send me a copy and I will test it locally.

    • I’m not familiar with that plugin. However, if you get the plugin author interested, we’ll be more than happy to work with them too.

  7. Hi, Much interested too in receiving a copy, or being notified of next WPML release.

    Best regards,

  8. Please send a copy – this is what I’ve been waiting (and asking Alex) for a couple of years already.
    Thanks in advance!

    • The latest changes for NextGen support are already included in WPML 2.2.0. If you purchased it already, log in to your account and download.

      • I’ve tried this, but is seems WPML 2.2.1. shows only photo titles as translatable strings and only for photos shown on translated pages. In my case, WPML shows only 14 strings and there are maybe 100 times more photos at my website.

        Do you have any thoughts or plans to also make NGG album, gallery and photo descriptions translatable?

        • You’re supposed to see all NGG attributes translatable. Are you using the development version of NGG? I don’t think that our changes are in the release version of NGG yet.

  9. Will album and gallery titles/descriptions be included in a future version?

    Currently, if you switch between translated pages that include an album, then the language changes to default language.

    Example: you are on a page to view a gallery in second language. If you navigate back to a page that includes an album and select a gallery, then the language has switched to base language.

    I guess this is because albums and gallery descriptions are not translated yet.

  10. Any news when the translation functionality will be available in the full version of NextGen Gallery?

    • It’s included in the development version. I suggest that you ask in the NGG forum and see when they plan to release it.

  12. I’m sorry but I still can’t find the method for translating the NextGen galleries’ texts. Please explain how could it be done?

    I’m using WPML 2.3 + NextGEN 1.8 with WP 3.1.3

    Thanks for the help.

    • We added our changes to the development version of NGG and I didn’t hear back from the author. I don’t know if they have released the version that includes it.

      Can you ask the NGG author in the changes that WPML team did are now in the code?

      • I joined the comment thread for the new version:
        http://alexrabe.de/2011/06/12/nextgen-gallery-v1-8-0-released/comment-page-1/#comment-22407

        One commenter answered this to my question:
        I’m not sure if there is another way to do it, but i translated them through the “String translation” admin page of WPML, under the “plugin_ngg” context. I also had to activate “Auto register strings for translation” in that page.

        But it’s still unclear for me from it.
        I made another comment waiting for clearance, but still no reply…

        Best Regards,
        g

        • BTW. What does String translation mean? Could it be that I’m missing some part? I don’t see that part in the WPML menu. Or is it somewhere under Edit/Plugins part?

  14. Hi,

    I really need this working on a site I’m developing. Could you send me the development version of WPML so I can try it out?

    Cheers

    Andreas

  15. Just got it working but one problem still remains I can’t figure out how to translate the album names? Is this even possible, I’d really need this to work.

    Cheers

    Andreas

  19. Hi Amir,

    Is there way to translate Gallery Titles?
    I have last versions of WPML and NGGallery but can’t find how to do this!

    If You have any idea, share please!
    And Have a nice day!

    • I’m not sure if the author of NGG incorporated our edits. We didn’t hear from him after we made our version.

  20. Hi,
    >If you’re a registered WPML client, leave a message here and we’ll email it to you.

    I have NextGen gallery.
    Please send me a copy, I’m really interested!

  22. Hello!

    Unfortunately still no luck to implement the Multilanguage functionality in NextGen galleries.
    I’m using WP ver. 3.2.1., WPML 2.4 and NextGen 1.8.4

    Could you please explain step-by-step how it is done? We choose WPML mostly because of this possibility, and are really sad that it doesn’t work.

    br-:g

  23. Hello Amir:

    I’m having problems to make NGG slideshows work on translated pages…
    I do not need to translate content but the IMAGES DO NOT SHOW…

    I selected a page to translate and changed the text on the page.. the ngg slideshow does not show pictures at all..

    Do you know what’s the problem? I can send you URL to check.. Please let me know, as this is a major issue.

    Thanks

    • This requires some change in NGG source, which we didn’t manage with. We need help from the author, but he’s too busy to communicate with us.

  24. Hi Amir,

    So, just to make sure; do I still need the development version of WPML in order to use my string translations from my NextGen image descriptions? Because they’re not showing up… Instead it shows the default language image descriptions.

    I did everything right (I think):
    – I added a new gallery with all the images
    – I Inserted the imagebrowser shortcode in all the (translated) pages
    – I translated all the image description text in the Stringtranslation editor

    Thanks!

    • No, you need the current version of WPML and NGG. The thing is, it’s been a while since we tested NGG with WPML and things may have gone broken. We’ve scheduled this for the near future and if we find anything, we’ll do another round of updates to NGG code.

        • Hi there, is there any news on this issue? I love the plugin but with ngg slideshow it only shows de default language. (- I added a new gallery with all the images, I Inserted the imagebrowser shortcode in all the (translated) pages, I translated all the image description text in the Stringtranslation editor)
          Thx

          • Please post about it in our forum and ask for Brooks. He worked on NGG compatibility and can help tell what’s wrong.

  25. I’m currently migrating my site to wordrpress and I’m using NGG to give my images (hundreds) a functional storing structure. I’m really impressed with the functionality of WPML and would greatly appreciate to have a copy of this plugin to avoid renaming all my images and galleries in NGG.

    Thank you.

    Hugo

    • WPML and NGG work fine. NGG registers all texts in the gallery for translation and you’ll be able to translate them using WPML’s String Translation module. You’ll need to buy the Multilingual CMS package to get the functionality that you need.