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Multisite Language Switcher

By Dennis Ploetner

Description

A simple, powerful and easy to use plugin that will add multilingual support to a WordPress multisite
installation, i.e. multiple subdomains or folders (if you need to set up multiple sites across multiple domains, you’ll also want to use the WordPress MU
Domain Mapping plugin as well – as long as the domains are all hosted on the same server.).

The Multisite Language Switcher enables you to manage translations of posts, pages, custom post types, categories, tags and custom taxonomies.

The plugin uses flag-icons from FamFamFam. Thanks to Mark James for his great work. In addition I would like to thank Jürgen Mayer for creating the plugin’s banner.

Please, don’t forget to rate this plugin! 🙂

Translators

Thanks to all translators for their great work.

If you have created your own language pack, or have an update of an existing one, you can send me your gettext PO and MO so that I can
bundle it into the Multisite Language Switcher. You can download the latest POT file
from here.

Screenshots

  • Plugin configuration
  • Posts list
  • Edit post
  • Widget

Blocks

This plugin provides 1 block.

  • Multisite Language Switcher

Installation

  • Download the plugin and uncompress it with your preferred unzip programme
  • Copy the entire directory in your plugin directory of your WordPress blog (/wp-content/plugins)
  • Activate the plugin in your plugin administration page (by the network administrator on all the blogs or by the root blog administrator for each particular blog).
  • You need to activate the plugin once in each blog, set the configuration in Settings -> Multisite Language Switcher

Now you can:

  • connect your translated pages and posts in Posts -> Edit or Page -> Edit
  • connect your translated categories and tags in Posts -> Categories or Post -> Tags
  • connect your Custom Post Types and Custom Taxonomies across languages
  • use the widget, the Gutenberg block, the shortcode [sc_msls] and/or a content_filter which displays a hint to the user if a translation is available
  • find also a shortcode for the widget [sc_msls_widget]
  • optionally you can place the code <?php if ( function_exists( 'the_msls' ) ) the_msls(); ?> directly in your theme files

Review the Multisite Language Switcher Website for more information.

FAQ

I have no language options in the General settings.

You might read first WordPress in your language.

But I’d like the interface to stay in English.

You can choose the language of the dashboard in the settings of your user profile.

Do I really need a multisite?

It’s up to you – of course. But yes, if you want to use the Multisite Language Switcher.

How can I automatically redirect users based on the browser language?

The Multisite Language Switcher does not redirect the users automatically. I’m not sure if the plugin should do that. You might check out this jQuery plugin or this approach with a theme
if you need such functionality.

How can I add the Multisite Language Switcher to the nav-menu of my blog?

Please check the add-on MslsMenu out.

I want to have the languages in an HTML select. How can I do that?

Please check the add-on MslsSelect out.

I don’t want to upload the same media files for every site. What can I do?

You could try the plugin Network Shared Media. It adds a new tab to the “Add Media” window, allowing you to access the media files in the other sites in your multisite.

Is there a function I can call to get the language of the page the user is currently viewing?

Yes, you should use the WordPress API function get_locale() but you could also use code like that

use lloc\Msls\MslsBlogCollection;

$blog     = MslsBlogCollection::instance()->get_current_blog();
$language = $blog->get_language();

How can I move from WPML to MSLS?

There is a plugin which comes handy in here.

Reviews

Fantastic plugin

Ogwekkuminogumu (Museenene) 13, 2023 1 reply
This is a fantastic plugin: it does exactly what promises to do, it's not bloated with extra features and it's been around for a long time. I can't thank the plugin author enough for developing this plugin, maintaining it for years and having the patience to deal with occasional 1-star reviews from people who can't be bothered to read the docs.

Superb!

Ogwekkuminogumu (Museenene) 7, 2023 1 reply
I'm not keen to write reviews, but in this case I was so overwhelmed of this plugin's simple features and ease of use that I had to. This is by far THE easiest multisite multilanguage plugin I ever tried. Over the years I tested several multilingual approachs (plugins for standalone WP sites, multisite "premium" plugins, country domains, etc.). But this here exceeds all my expectactions for its simplicity. Multilanguage should not be an option in WordPress, but part of the core, out of the box. This plugin deserves a 10 of 10. Two thumbs way up! Thank you for this peace of art.

Great plugin but needs one functionality

Mugulansigo 29, 2023
I am very happy with the plugin's operation - it is extremely easy to use and does not cause any problems.Works with WordPress Multisite great! However, there is a feature missing from the plugin that has already been popping up on the web, namely support for reciprocal hreflang (return tag: which is missing Missing x-default). When I audit any page with this plugin, I get "Missing reciprocal hreflang (no return-tag)", you can find info at Ahrefs site ""Missing reciprocal hreflang (no return-tag)" error in Site Audit" I will be very grateful if this functionality is added :)As I can see this needs to add one line of code 🙂 Greeting from PolandPaweł

Great work!

Mugulansigo 10, 2023
highly customizable, high performance, indispensable – thanks a lot. theo

Awesome plugin

Gatonnya 30, 2023 1 reply
Thank you for creating and maintain the great plugin. Thank you so much.
Read all 92 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Multisite Language Switcher” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

“Multisite Language Switcher” has been translated into 15 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.

Translate “Multisite Language Switcher” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

There is a separate Changelog for this project available.

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Support

Issues resolved in last two months:

2 out of 5

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