This article relates to Joomfish 1.8 and Joomla 1.0 and is not relevant to Joomfish 2.0 on Joomla 1.5.

This is a Frequently Asked Question about Joom!Fish operation. When creating a site with content in three or more languages, using Joom!Fish 1.7 and Joomla! 1.0.x, sometimes it is hard to figure out how to add the third language version of a piece of content. The problem is that the Joom!Fish Translation UI is a bit hard to understand.

Problem

The following text, taken from a forum posting, is a typical statement of the problem.

"I want to transfer our static site into Joomla and it needs to be build in 3 languages. (Joomla 1.08 and Joom!Fish 1.07 Beta are installed) I've created an content item in the first language (Dutch). Within Components/Joom!Fish/Translation I've selected the content I've created and made an translation to the 2nd language (German). But how can I make the translation in the 3rd language (English)? When I make a change in the translation, the German translation will get overwritten."

Step-by-step solution

1. Install all your languages with the standard Joomla! language installation
2. Configure all your languages in Joom!Fish -> language configuration
3. Go to the Joom!Fish Translations page
4. In the "Content Elements" pull-down menu, select the content element you want to translate (e.g. Contents, Module, Menu)
5. In the "Languages" pull-down menu, the default value is "All languages". Select the specific language you want to translate into. Don't leave it set to "all languages": see below.

Discussion

The "All Languages" setting of the "Languages" dropdown menu works as follows. For a given piece of content in the original language:

1. if there is no translation in Joom!Fish's database, then the piece of content is listed in the "Translation" page, with "(no translation)" in the Languages column, a red circle (Translation does not exist) in the State column. This makes it easy to select and perform the translation into the 2nd language.
2. if there is at least one translation in Joom!Fish's database for that content item, then *only* the translations that exist are listed. Translations for languages Joom!Fish knows about, but which aren't yet written, do not show up in that listing.

Change the "Languages" dropdown menu to have a specific setting (e.g. "Deutsch"). Now, every piece of content will appear in the list, with the target language (e.g. "Deutsch") in the Languages column, and for those items with no translation into the the language, a red circle (Translation does not exist) in the State column.

This issue is present with Joom!Fish 1.7 and Joomla! 1.0.x.

External links

• Joom!Fish forum "Site in 3 Languages" is an example of an author encountering this problem.
• Joom!Fish forum "Second translation can't be made..." is an example of an author encountering this problem.
• Joomla! forum "mutliple languages with Joom!fish" (July 19 2006) is probably an example of an author encountering this problem.
• Artifact artf5347 : Translation UI "All Languages" should show missing translations also is a feature request to prevent this problem in future Joom!Fish versions.