Reply To: Easiest way to create new WPML site with ACF

• amityweb

• July 23, 2016 at 10:22 am

hi goldhat, yes I think you must misunderstand me, or I am misunderstanding ACF…

“Unless I’m really misunderstanding the problem this video at about 1:38 shows the English field group being duplicated to Spanish the same as any other post types.” -> the problem is this is a manual process and customers are asking why they have to do this. If we have all the extra content fields in English, people are asking why when they create a new language are the fields not there already. Editors/customers do not know about ACF, this is a developer tool to add content. They just see the content fields and think they will be there when they create new posts in the new language, but the fields are not there. The duplication process is technical. People are worried about doing it.

“But I’m not sure what the benefit is to translation of field groups other than the labels in the WP admin?” -> We are not translating labels. We are translating the field contents. If I create a new language, the ACF fields are missing from the new language pages and posts, so the website administrators cannot add the translated content. Not until the fields are manually duplicated to the other languages.

“Otherwise for the front-end why not just use English fields, any content entered can still be translated.” -> I dont understand this. It can only be translated after the field groups are manually duplicated to the other languages. What I am asking is can the field groups be automatically duplicated when you create a new language (some sort of hook you can use?)

“not sure how often field groups are actually being translated” -> Surely field groups are translated in every language? Why would a new language not have any custom fields?? Customers would like the same custom fields available to translate in the other languages. If I add a WYSIWG field for something like “Second Body Content” that would need to be in all the languages posts.

“I think the sync feature would be great if you add a field to English it duplicates that field to the translated versions. That would be a timesaver for sure.” -> yes

“I think it’s normal for that to be an additional plugin specific to bridging ACF/WPML” -> no way, not another plugin to add features to ACF. ACF should do this. Its nothing to do with WPML, its a feature of ACF, to be WPML compatible.

“Certainly it would not be good for performance to have ACF presume you want translate field groups” -> it would only happen at the time of creating a new language and a new field.

Edit: I would just like to add that I think ACF is fantastic for a single language WP website. Its a plugin we will use on all sites. I come from an Expression Engine and Craft background, and ACF means that WP can be made to be just as powerful (more powerful) than those CMSs. Its only with WPML that ACF has problems for us, due to not creating the fields in the other language automatically. Toolset Types does it. I read on forums that WPML recommend Toolset Types as its more compatible.