WPML 2.6.1 is released with a brand new Translation Analytics module, fixes that can make your life easier, and new e-commerce support.
The major news in this release is the full availability of the Translation Analytics module. When you’re running complex multilingual sites and use a team of translators, the new Translation Analytics module will make your management work a lot easier. You’ll get a quick snapshot of the status of translation to all languages and can track the progress of translation over time.
Since the Translation Analytics module tracks progress, it can also produce (surprisingly accurate) estimates about when translation is likely to complete. This is done based on the actual pace of the translation in each language.
To use the Translation Analytics module, you need to send content for translation via WPML’s Translation Management module. Every day, the Analytics module will create a snapshot of the translation status, in all languages. Then, you can view this information using convenient reporting tools and understand where you’re standing and when translation will really complete.
This way, you can catch deadline problems before they happen and make sure your projects complete on time. The Translation Analytics module is available in the WPML Multilingual CMS package.
Easy Digital Downloads Support
If you’re looking to sell digital goods, you should know Easy Digital Downloads (a.k.a. EDD). EDD is a slick e-commerce plugin that lets you sell digital items. Meaning, it’s a minimalistic e-commerce plugins that avoids all the complexity involved with shipping and variations. Having worked with a number of fully featured e-commerce plugins, we can tell that this is a great idea. Execution is also great.
To run multilingual sites with EDD, you’re welcome to use our new Easy Digital Downloads Multilingual glue plugin. It’s still in Beta, but already powers some product sites of WPML clients. We recommend trying it. Let us know what you think and how it’s working for you.
Bug Fixes
We’ve been able to track down and fix several nasty bugs which range from nuisance to really damaging issues. As always, we’re very thankful to all our loyal, patient and savvy clients who reported issues and worked with us to confirm they are resolved.
- Menu sync problems – The menu translation synchronization is probably the single most complex feature packed into WPML. We identified some glitches that occur in several cases. Most were related to menu items with Asian, Russian and other non-Latin character sets.
- Translation for custom fields with arrays – Until this release, WPML has always had issues translating custom fields that include arrays. Sounds like an exotic feature? Think again! This problem influenced WPML with Types, Advanced Custom Fields and E-Commerce plugins. Turns out that a historic bug in WordPress core is responsible for this and it’s solved now in WPML 2.6.1.
- You can choose translators when sending content from edit screens – If you have more than one translator to a language and used to send translation jobs from edit screens, you might have wondered who will get these jobs. We’ve added translator selection to there too.
- Taxonomy translation issues – WPML code has some mixup between taxonomy term IDs and taxonomy IDs. In 99% of the cases, this did not cause any issue, however, it’s a dangerous potential for database tangles. This release sorted it out and prevents this potential risk.
- Notification emails not sent to translators – We found that in some cases, notification emails are not sent to translators, even though they are enabled. Fixed.
- Auto WordPress core translation works on sites with restricted file-systems – WPML needed file-write access in order to get translation for WordPress core. No longer. Now it reads the .mo files and saves directly into the String Translation table, without going through any file.
- Hierarchical child Custom post type slug – WPML had trouble resolving URLs if you’re using custom post types with a hierarchy. Now it’s working fine.
- Major enhancements to Sticky Links module – We’ve given a major facelift to the to Sticky Links functionality. Now, WPML will turn strings to Sticky, no matter what other attributes or anchor you’re using.
- Improved support for multilingual sites with Types and Views – As many more web developers are using WPML, Types and Views to build sites, we’re getting into new scenarios. This version of WPML provides complete compatibility with both Types and Views and lets you build full multilingual sites entirely from the admin dashboard without coding.
Upgrading to WPML 2.6.1
This upgrade is recommended to all sites. Existing sites should continue working without change, besides maybe avoiding some bugs during operation.
To upgrade to WPML 2.6.1, you can either download the new ZIP files from the Download section in your account, or (much better) get upgrades automatically using our Installer plugin.
The Installer plugin has also received numerous upgrades during the last few months, making it super-robust and fast. If you’re not using it already, you’re missing out. Installer will let you upgrade WPML and its components with minimal effort and time.