Posted by aubergine on Thu, Jun 19, 2025 - 3:48am

I installed backdrop in english, and then later on ive decided to go multi-language and installed required translation modules and added another language.

Default installed post, card and page contents needed to be re-saved individually for translation tab to be visible.

But there is no way the translate tabs to be seen in System/Site Info, user account mails...etc

The only solution now seems to be to re-install backdrop cms from start with another language, or is there something im missing?

Note: I can translate individually from "user interface translation" but that is not the desired usage.

Accepted answer

Developing a multilingual site in Backdrop CMS is entirely possible, but it requires a lot of patience and study. I have followed the history of the project since the first versions of Backdrop CMS in 2016 and have witnessed how multilingualism has gradually developed, but in different directions.

There are elements of multilingualism that are built into the core, the fields in Site Information for the site name and slogan can be translated via admin/config/regional/translate/translate. Many strings can be translated this way. However, this multilingualism is limited to basic functionalities. To access the full set of tools, the Internationalization (i18n) module is required.

I suggest you pay attention to these modules that I use for multilingual sites:

Alternate hreflang
Frontpage Multilingual
Internationalization
Language Icons

A multilingual homepage can also be made using Layouts (by presenting a different home page layout depending on the language), but with Frontpage Multilingual it becomes easier and closer to the way it was done with Drupal 7.

A significant difference between i18n in Drupal 7 and Backdrop is the lack of a Variables module in Backdrop's i18n and as far as I understand the idea is to use admin/config/regional/translate/translate instead.

Sometimes, resolving translation issues requires editing templates and using the (t) function.

Example: <h2><?php print t('Welcome to our website!'); ?></h2>

This will make the phrase "Welcome to our website!" available for translation through the interface.

Comments

Thu, Jun 19, 2025 - 5:24am by Enthusiast

As I remember, you need to switch to another language, enter the information in this language into the fields, and save.

Thu, Jun 19, 2025 - 5:15am by aubergine

Tried, it changes for all languages.

There should be a button or tab somewhere in the site info page for translation and next to some fields should write "this is a multi language field". 

Thu, Jun 19, 2025 - 6:25am by Enthusiast

I was wrong. But did it with the translation of the lines /admin/config/regional/translate

Thu, Jun 19, 2025 - 6:31am by aubergine

I know, i can translate from "user interface translate" but that is not the expected behaviour.

Thu, Jun 19, 2025 - 5:48am by herb

Some of it isn't intuitive.

Enable the locale module, which is needed for translating the interface, if you haven't already.

Download the language files if you haven't already: https://localize.backdropcms.org/. Import the language files by going to example.com/admin/config/regional/translate (change example.com to your website). Go to the import tab to import the file.

On the main tab you can also search for words that you want to translate. If you can't find them then go to the page where they appear, click on the language switcher in the top menu. Then go back to translate page and search again. Sometimes that helps for them to appear. 

Backdrop (and Drupal) have different modules for handling translating content types and for translating the interface.

 

Thu, Jun 19, 2025 - 10:37am by amilenkov

Developing a multilingual site in Backdrop CMS is entirely possible, but it requires a lot of patience and study. I have followed the history of the project since the first versions of Backdrop CMS in 2016 and have witnessed how multilingualism has gradually developed, but in different directions.

There are elements of multilingualism that are built into the core, the fields in Site Information for the site name and slogan can be translated via admin/config/regional/translate/translate. Many strings can be translated this way. However, this multilingualism is limited to basic functionalities. To access the full set of tools, the Internationalization (i18n) module is required.

I suggest you pay attention to these modules that I use for multilingual sites:

Alternate hreflang
Frontpage Multilingual
Internationalization
Language Icons

A multilingual homepage can also be made using Layouts (by presenting a different home page layout depending on the language), but with Frontpage Multilingual it becomes easier and closer to the way it was done with Drupal 7.

A significant difference between i18n in Drupal 7 and Backdrop is the lack of a Variables module in Backdrop's i18n and as far as I understand the idea is to use admin/config/regional/translate/translate instead.

Sometimes, resolving translation issues requires editing templates and using the (t) function.

Example: <h2><?php print t('Welcome to our website!'); ?></h2>

This will make the phrase "Welcome to our website!" available for translation through the interface.

Thu, Jun 19, 2025 - 10:46am by aubergine

Accepted your answer for what it is but i dont like how it is. Meanwhile ive found other more important problems and gave up.