Language installation and configuration (Joomla 4)

Note: If you are using joomla 3.X. read the article instead: configuration and language management for joomla 3

Note: If you are using joomla 2.5. read the article instead: configuration and language management for joomla 2.5.

Preamble

Here is the first part of the falang installation and configuration tutorial for joomla 4.

This article describes the procedure for installing any classic multilingual site with Joomla; this is not limited to use with Falang.

Info: Improper configuration of languages on joomla can cause errors such as 404 "page not found" or 500 "server error".

Note: Falang works in conjunction with the default language system; a good configuration of languages on Joomla is therefore necessary.

We assume that you have downloaded your version of joomla from joomla.org. That is, only the "en-GB" language package is installed.

The joomla version of this article is 4.3.2 but remains valid for all versions of branch 4.

Your new site is installed, so you only have one site language installed (en-GB), which you can see here:
System > Manage > Languages

You can see that only the English language is installed.

You will therefore have to perform 2 steps:

Install a language package
Publish the content language(s) corresponding to the package

Since Joomla 4 the content language is automatically added when installing a pack.

Installing a language pack

Click on "Install languages" on the site's languages page or System > Manage > Languages > Install languages

In our example, we want to install French and German. We will therefore filter by typing "French" and "German" which allows us to see the language pack and install it.

Notes: You can also install the language pack manually, by going to the following address: joomla 4 language pack

Our 2 languages French and German are installed, the default language is English.

Installing a content language

You must subsequently publish a content language to the pack you just installed in order to allow that language to display. To do this go to System > Manage > Content Languages.

The languages are already added since Joomla 4, but we can see below that they are not published.

So we will publish them.

You must publish the languages you want to be visible on the site.

Please note that you cannot modify the "language tag". This must correspond to your previously installed site language fr-FR , de-DE, es-ES, pl-PL, mk-MK.

This url gives you the list of iso codes http://www.lingoes.net/en/translator/ langcode.htm

The url language code and the image prefix are usually a 2 character code.

The images are located by default in the following folder: media/mod_falang/images/ they are gif images of 18x12 pixels.

Note: The path and extension of the image files can be configured in the paid versions of Falang.

Note: Consider publishing this language of content to make it visible on the site.

Here, the languages are now configured. You should see them in Falang, in the drop-down list. If this is not the case, there is a problem in the configuration of your content languages.

Warning: There is currently no control over the proper configuration of content languages within joomla.

Content languages must have "public" visibility, otherwise there may be infinite redirection.

Info: An unpublished language is not visible on the site, but is accessible for Falang. You can therefore enter your translations without it being visible to your visitors.

Here, your joomla 4 language system is now configured to work with or without Falang.

You can skip to the 2nd part of this tutorial: Falang component installation and configuration (joomla 4)