Multi-language / translations

Marcel needs to be built with multi-language websites in mind. Some things that need to be translated:

• the website's content
• strings in templates
• date formats
• what else?

Configuring languages

In marcel.config.js:

languages: ['en', 'ro'],
defaultLanguage: 'ro'

Translating content

Translations of content are linked together by sharing the same file name and location in the content folder. They are distinguished by separate language suffixes.

content
  - my-post.ro.md
  - my-post.en.md

These two refer to the same post. The language code suffix is ignored when generating the slug.

What if one of the languages needs a different slug? It can be overriden in the post's front matter (the slug property).

Generating permalinks for content

One idea from WordPress-land is to have urls in the form:

http://mysite.com/posts/my-post
http://mysite.com/en/posts/my-post-in-english

That is, the defaultLanguage does not include the language code in the URL, while others do.

Note: It should be possible to override the permalink scheme for multi-language content.

Translating strings

This will probably require two things:

• a dictionary (keep separate files in a language folder?)
• a filter in the nunjucks templates

How does the filter look?

<a href='#next'>{{ "Next" | translate }}</a>

If no string is found in the dictionary for the current language, the string is rendered as-is.

Links to translated content

The templates should have access to a languages object that contains an array of all available languages.

Should the post object be augmented with a translations property that holds the equivalent posts? (Full objects, so you have access to title, content, permalink etc.)

Start with marcel.config.js, the content folder's language-suffixed files, and the Nunjucks template setup described in the issue. Trace how content, templates, dates, permalinks, and links are currently generated before deciding the configuration and translation design. Done should cover the listed multilingual content and string behavior, language-aware URLs, and access to translated content.