How to manage contents with a CMS and get translations done

[alexgarel]

We want contents on Open Food Facts to be updated more quickly and to be more attractive.
For that we need a tool that enables content creators to do it easily. We still need contents to be massively translated.

@4nt0ineB has done a work to have contents for open food facts in wordpress.
The plan was to use WPML with Crowdin to translate the contents.
But as we tested it, it does not fit our needs:

• it creates completely new file on each article modification
• it does not handle already translated items, and partial translations…

We want to explore further more what to do.

Possible ideas:

• don't use crowdin, and use wordpress for translations, managing users and so on (wikimedia does this)
• use a static site generator, and handle translations with github / crowdin
• dump html contents from wordpress and handle translations with github / crowdin

[alexgarel]

One way would be:

• use CMS (wordpress) to generate content in english
• push to static html in a github repo (using a small script with wordpress API)
• send to crowdin for translations
• serve it as we do today for openfoodfacts-web

One problem that remains is that the way we handle crowding PRs currently is messy, because we got too much translations at once, and it's not easy to validate.

With a quick read at github action for crowdin it may be possible to have a better strategy:

• do one PR per language (easy)
• do one PR per file (and per language ?) (a bit harder because we have to add a github action for each file, using matrix strategy + output of file list)
• only download fully translated files (make sense for article translations)

I must experiment with this, but I think it could be a huge improvement also for other projects.

@teolemon would you agree that for contents the best would be:

• one PR per file (article) and per language
• but only download complete files (we can eventually add "only approved translations" if we have a manager per language)

[CharlesNepote]

Some path to investigate?

Crowdin CMS connectors managing minor content updates

Some Crowdin CMS connectors seem to manage minor content updates, suggesting you don't have to reload the whole page when there is a small fix.

At least I have found the following connectors/CMS do this:

• https://store.crowdin.com/strapi (free) : "Quick sync and translation of even minor content updates, like a new sentence or a changed word."
• https://store.crowdin.com/directus (free) : idem
• https://store.crowdin.com/buttercms (trial) : idem
• etc., see https://www.google.com/search?q=even+minor+content+updates+site:crowdin.com

It seems that all these CMSs are headless.

What kind of contents Crowdin is able to translate with ease?

How Crowdin is able to translate contents in a fine grain approach (per paragraphs, blocs, etc.)?
Are there Crowdin connectors already fine for some kind of format? JSON? Markdown? Is possible to build a simple connector based on specific format?

Then find the collection of tools allowing to produce this kind of format, and generate web contents based on it.

The web content management approach

Some web tools allow to build rich web layout based on flat files. It might be possible to export these contents to feed Crowdin.

Eg. to investigate:

• Automad, a flat file CMS that can be headless; Rich https://automad.org/user-guide/using-blocks
• Typemill, a flat file CMS that handles blocks: https://typemill.net/

What are the main needs for editors?

The main needs should be listed to select/reject some tools:

• rich editing
• image management: upload, resize, crop...
• block editing (like in Wordpress, Odoo, etc.): allowing image integration, multi-colomns eventually
• easy revision process
• easy publication process
• ...

[CharlesNepote]

Also look at: "Manage taxonomies properties in an external CMS ", #8536