Hello,

I am on the search for viable solution to run a multilingual forum module.
At the moment we are running the forum module with english and german
threads separated in different boards. An user, who is not logged in gets
to see only the boards according to their browser language. The other
should collapse. A user who is logged in can choose whether to leave the
boards of the other language collapsed or not. Unfortunately this cookie
based collapsing of the boards is not working all the time and has it’s
limitations if the user switches the computer.
Another problem is that the search brings up results from both languages
which is in particular a problem when using the search for the new posts or
most active posts of the day.

Therefore I’m looking for a solution to solve this without hacking the forum
module directly. As some of the german users would like to read boards
in both languages I was thinking to make a custom user field where the user
can specify the languages that he would like to read and to use that custom
field to

1) choose the boards to show
2) filter the search fields

I should mention that all boards have the language in the name and that
this is our main identifier for the selecting the appropriate boards.

As we use the forum user site-wide and have a relatively complex group
structure already I wouldn’t like to use groups to make the boards available
for the different users.

So does anybody have any ideas how to get this running? Or do I turning
my head in a complete wrong direction?

thanks lars

Hey,

I’ve thought I just share some bits on how we managed the multi language board.
I finally had to hack into the forum, but this wasn’t that difficult.

1. First we added a custom profile field where the user can choose between
  german or english in order to see only the forum boards in either or both
  language(s) depending on what he/she selected. The field is a checkbox. In
  order to get this I hacked some bits of the member module and added the
  appropriate code, where needed.
 
2. We then have a very string naming scheme for our boards, where all boards names
  begin with either “English: ” or “German: “.

3. Based on these scheme it is possible to check, which language are set in the profile
  and hide the corresponding boards. If a guest accesses the forum the browser language
  will be taken as main language. In case of user, who hasn’t chosen a language for the
  forum boards the either the localization settings or the browser language is taken to
  display the appropriate boards.

This solution makes it possible, that independent from the localization settings
the user can select the boards he wants to see in a very easy way. This was one
main goal, as most german users wanted to read the english boards as well.

/lars