[pmwiki-users] categories in different languages

[sti at pooq.com]

Peter & Melodye Bowers wrote:
> I’m working on a system that tracks books published in the shqip
> language.  However, many of those involved in publishing (and donors,
> etc.) prefer to work in English.  As I categorize the books I’m
> realizing that I’m ending up with a parallel system of categories in
> each language that is going to be very difficult to keep consistent.
> 
> Does anybody have any ideas how to handle a situation like this?  Right
> now every piece of information I’m entering is being entered twice so we
> have the information in both languages.  If somebody forgets to fill in
> a field for one of the languages in most fields that’s not a big deal,
> but if someone forgets to fill in the category in both languages then
> all of a sudden I’m out of sync. 

Its an interesting problem, and one that I'm going to run into soon. On
my system, it won't be too severe a problem if things get out of sync,
but I can see how it would be in another project I plan to work on later.

My only idea is to have some sort of auto-allocated categories (things
like CAT19853 and the like) and have them translated into the given
languages.

Whenever you enter a new category (probably via a form interface) it
gets looked up in a dictionary for that language. If its found, the
abstract category that it corresponds to is used. If its not found, a
new category is created, with the new definition, and it is used.

Then, you should be able to go to a page and ask for a list of all
Categories that need translations into other languages.

It would be a fair amount of work to get it all working correctly, but I
think its doable.