I need to build a multi language setup for a client and I have to admit I've never done this before, so when setting up the locales I was a bit confused as I thought translations might be applicable to selected fields only but in fact I have two different "templates" (i.e. tabs inside a template). So whenever I change an image inside the EN version, I need to adjust this in the other versions as well. Is this really how a multi language site works or is there more efficient and productive way?
As a sidenote — I am aware that I can copy over a content once it's ready, but e.g. the client is populating all the content after the development process but they're still waiting for images, so we'll launch the site and the client needs to add images later. Adding dozens of images on multiple pages and multiple languages feels extremely unproductive. Again, I've never done a multi language site before so apologies if this is just the way it works...
Thanks for posting this question and for giving multi-language a try for the first time.
Your understanding is correct: when you translate a document, you're creating a complete new version of that document. If you have an English homepage and a Spanish homepage, when you change the content on your homepage you'll have to make all the changes on both versions.
One reason for this is because a lot of users use the translation feature for locale as well as language — a London (en-gb) version of a website might have completely different images, text, featured posts, and page structure from a San Francisco (en-us) version of a website.
Thanks for getting back and this sounds totally legit. As this site is very image heavy with almost no text I feel it adds another layer of complexity for the client and I might go with a "fake multi language" setup having different text input fields for different languages.
Cool! I'm going to close this thread, but if you have any more questions or if you'd like to post updates on how your project goes, please just send a request to re-open it.