Setting up Joomla 2.5.x and VirtueMart 2.0.x for multiple languages

[jjk]

If you are using Joomla 2.5.x and VirtueMart 2.0.x, you don't need Joomfish at all. Have a look at the website links provided here:
http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=110005.msg368594#msg368594
or
http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=115159.0
There are quite a lot multilingual VM2 shops without using Joomfish.

[pacino68]

Thanks JJK - any ideas why they were pushing me to get Joomfish (other than for charging me money)
 
 
Is it relatively simple to set up multiple languages on VirtueMart 2.0 ?

[jjk]

Thanks JJK - any ideas why they were pushing me to get Joomfish (other than for charging me money)

Many people used Joomfish for Joomla 1.5.x websites, including myself. But some people didn't realize yet that the multilanguage features in Joomla 2.5.x are working very well, too.
 

Is it relatively simple to set up multiple languages on VirtueMart 2.0 ?

Yes, if you follow the Joomla and VirtueMart tutorials linked in the first post of this thread. There are a number of video tutorials on YouTube, too.
However, I would recommend to get the bilingual language setup working correctly before you enter a lot of products. It doesn't make a lot of sense to enter hundreds of products first and then find out that you entered your french descriptions into the english language tables (although it's possible to fix such mistakes)...

[jackvonthor]

Is it possible to add products in english and for example polish language? or is it always based on a translation system (we type it in one language and it translates to other language) ?

[jjk]

Normally you add a product description in your primary language first and then switch to the other language and add the translation. But I'm not shure what you want to know. Do you want to add products which are only displayed in Polish and other products which are only available in English?

[jackvonthor]

I want to know if i can i make the translation by myself? Or is there some automatic translation script that translates the information about the product.

Also, is it possible to add different products for english language and different for the polish? some of them i want to appear only in the specific language version of the shop

[jjk]

With the built-in translation system you have to do the translation yourself. I think there are third party extensions adding google or bing translations, but I wouldn't recommend to use one of those. For your second question this free plugin might be the easiest solution: https://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=105975.0

But you might ask the developer first if it has been updated and tested with the latest versions of VirtueMart.

[csg22]

Hello,
I have set up my site. I checked it with the admin module. I installed en-US for vm. It appears when I edit 'product categories' but when I select en-us from the dropdown it is en-uk after saving. I noticed when I installed lang file it is installed in different directories than the original en-gb lang files.
How can I fix this?

[jjk]

Do you want to use en-US only, or do you want to configure Joomla/VM for more than one language. In case you want a multilanguage system - did you follow the Multilanguage setup tutorial available here? http://docs.virtuemart.net/tutorials/multilingual-store/99-multilanguage-setup.html
If you want to use en-US only, you also need to install the en-US joomla language files.

[dxxx1988]

is it posible to change fallback language to something else then English?

[jjk]

is it posible to change fallback language to something else then English?

Normally that's not possible. The only method to do that which comes into my mind ist to rename the language files of another language. For example take the ukrainian file uk-UA.com_virtuemart.ini  and change the prefix uk-UA to en-GB. But those will be overwritten again when you update VirtueMart to a newer version. I'm not shure if Joomla template overrides would work for all language files in order to keep the files from being overwritten upon updates.

[Garyk01]

Please help or suggest a solution.

In Joomla add and chose three languages ​​- flags displayed on the website in the module language switching. Languages ​​switched.
In Virtuemart add and chose three languages, created a test categories and products and get a result - if you open the description of the category or description of the product and switch to another language, it directs me to the homepage.
This is as it should be, or I'm set  multilingual not right?

If this is the way it should be, how can we improve the situation - the user must remain on the selected page product or category after switching to another language?

Joomla 3.4.1 + VM 3.0.6.4

[jjk]

You should create three menus, one for each language and make sure that the correct language tag is assigned to each menu item you add to a menu. Make shure you add the same categories in all menus and then associate the menu items to the other languages in the Joomla menu manager.

The Joomla language switcher depends on menu items an their IDs. Switching languages in VirtueMart frontend views is identical to doing so in Joomla. When you are looking at 'Product X' in 'Category A' in Finnish and switch to English, it looks for a menu item 'Category A' in English. If it doesn't find that, the Joomla language switcher will fall back to the next higher level for which it finds a menu item in English, which might be your homepage. If you have a lot of products, you would have to create a lot of (hidden) menu items, if you want to associate products. I wouldn't recommend that.

[Garyk01]

Thank you!
So I started to do everything correctly.

I associate categories and cart Virtuemart to menu Joomla - all turned out. If I select another language, after that I stay on the page category or page basket.

If you have a lot of products, you would have to create a lot of (hidden) menu items, if you want to associate products. I wouldn't recommend that.

Snap a lot of products to the menu - it is a very labor-intensive process and will be probably a big load on the system.

May be you have other variant for the products?

[jjk]

May be you have other variant for the products?

I don't know any good method for associating a large number of products.