Multilingual

Open Intranet runs in any number of languages out of the box. The platform leans on Drupal core’s four multilingual modules — Language, Interface translation, Content translation and Configuration translation — and adds a language switcher dropdown that ships with the default theme.

The result is a site where the interface (every label, button, error message, menu item), the content (each News article, KB page, page, event, document) and the configuration (block titles, view headers, field labels, system emails) can each be translated independently — and where every visitor lands on the page in the language they prefer.

What it is

By default the platform installs English only. Adding a new language is a single admin click — it imports the language, downloads its interface translation pack from localize.drupal.org automatically, and wires it into every multilingual surface on the site.

Adding Polish, German, French or any of the other 100+ languages Drupal supports is a ~30-second operation. The day-to-day workflow afterwards is:

1. Pick the languages the company needs.
2. Decide which content types and fields should be translatable.
3. Translators fill in the per-language values from the Translate tab on each item.

Components

The Languages page

/admin/config/regional/language is where languages are added, ordered, and marked as default. Each row shows:

Column	Purpose
Name	The language’s display name.
Default	A radio that picks the site default.
Interface translation	Status of the imported .po file (or not applicable for English).
Operations	Edit, delete, reset the language.

Drag-and-drop reordering changes the order in which the languages appear in the switcher block and in the Translate tab.

The Detection and selection sub-tab controls how a request gets a language — by URL prefix (the recommended default), by domain, by browser Accept-Language, by user preference, by session, by cookie. Multiple methods can run in priority order.

Interface translation

Once a non-English language is added, Drupal automatically downloads the matching interface translation pack. Interface means everything written in code — button labels, form errors, watchdog messages, the standard menu items, the admin UI itself.

The /admin/config/regional/translate page lets administrators override any string for the site (e.g. translate “Bookmarks” as “Mes favoris” rather than “Signets”). Strings can also be edited inline directly on the page using the Locale↗ UI.

Content translation

/admin/config/regional/content-language is the per-bundle, per-field opt-in for content translation:

For each entity bundle (News article, Page, Document, KB page, Event, …) the admin chooses:

• Whether the bundle is translatable at all.
• Which fields are translated per language (e.g. Title, Body, Image alt text).
• Which fields are shared across languages (e.g. Author, Created date, URL alias).
• The default language and whether to publish translations independently.

Once enabled, every item gets a Translate tab with one row per language. Click Add on a language row to open a copy of the edit form pre-populated with the source values — fill in the translated strings and save. Each translation is independently revisioned, can be in a different moderation state, and can have a different URL alias.

Configuration translation

/admin/config/regional/config-translation lists every translatable configuration object — block titles, view headers, view exposed-form labels, field labels, system emails, contact-form messages — and lets administrators add per-language overrides. This is what makes the difference between a site that “looks translated” (interface only) and a site that genuinely speaks the language of its users.

Language switcher

The default theme places a language switcher dropdown in the page header. It uses the Dropdown Language↗ module so that the current language is shown as a flag/code button and the other languages collapse into a dropdown — keeping the header tidy even with 6+ languages enabled.

Clicking a language reloads the current page on its translated URL (e.g. /news/welcome → /de/news/welcome).

URL pattern

Multilingual URLs use the path prefix detection method:

/news/welcome           ← English (default)
/de/news/welcome        ← German translation
/fr/news/welcome        ← French translation
/pl/news/welcome        ← Polish translation

Pathauto generates the same alias on each language; an admin can override per language from the URL alias widget on the translation form. Switching language on a single item routes through the Translation tab so the user always lands on the correct localised URL.

What’s translatable

Surface	Translation type
Admin UI (toolbar, forms, error messages)	Interface translation (.po import)
Menus & menu links	Configuration translation
Block titles & block content	Configuration / Content translation
Views: page title, header, footer, exposed labels	Configuration translation
Field labels & help text	Configuration translation
News articles, Pages, KB pages, Events	Content translation (per-field opt-in)
Documents (title, description, file alt)	Content translation
Taxonomy terms (categories, tags, departments)	Content translation
User profile fields (where appropriate)	Content translation
System emails, contact forms	Configuration translation

Integration with other features

• News, Pages, KB, Events, Documents — All Open Intranet content types can be turned multilingual through the Content language settings.
• Search — Each language has its own indexed content; the Search API view filters results by the current language.
• Messenger — A future channel plugin can pick the right per-recipient language by reading the recipient’s preferred_langcode.
• Pathauto + Redirect — Per-language URL aliases for SEO-friendly translated routes.
• AI assistant — The CKEditor AI assistant can be prompted to translate the current selection or to draft the translated version of an article.

Permissions

Permission	Default role(s)
Translate any entity	Translator (custom role) + Administrator
Administer languages	Administrator
Administer content translation	Administrator
Administer configuration translation	Administrator
Translate user-edited configuration	Administrator
Translate interface text	Administrator

Modules behind it

Drupal core:

• language — language definitions, switcher block, detection
• locale — interface translation import / override
• content_translation — per-field, per-bundle content translation
• config_translation — translatable config objects (blocks, views, etc.)

Contrib:

• Dropdown Language↗ — clean dropdown switcher
• Pathauto↗ — per-language URL aliases
• Redirect↗ — clean redirects when an alias changes

Learn more

• News and Articles, Knowledge Base, Pages, Events, Documents — every content type can opt into translation
• Search — per-language search results
• Drupal’s multilingual handbook↗