Unfortunately the free qTranslate multilingual plugin has been playing up with version 3.5 of WordPress. If you have a multilingual site based on this plugin, you’re probably scratching your head or praying that an update will be released soon.
Want my recommendation? Move to WPML, the best multilingual plugin for WordPress, guaranteed. Multilanguage functionality is not something I would depend on a free plugin for. When you get WPML, you get a whole support theme behind you, and frequent updates, making this a long term solution. You can keep your mind at rest that WPML will never break, because there are guys improving it all the time.
So if you want to join the thousands of users already using WPML (I have personally helped many people get going to WPML, and I have yet to hear any negative feedback), here’s some good news for you.
WPML have made the migration job easy for us (I told you these guys are amazingly proactive) by releasing a free qTranslate to WPML migration tool.
The importer doesn’t care how badly things are broken on the public pages or the WordPress admin. If your qTranslate site got corrupted after migrating to WordPress 3.5 and you want to migrate to WPML, here is what you should do:
Backup your database. The importer will overwrite everything, so you want to have complete database backup before starting the process. The file system will remain untouched.
Here is how it works:
- Deactivate qTranslate. Your site will look like a mess. Don’t panic, it will get better soon.
- Install WPML and activate it. If you bought WPML, get it from your account. Otherwise, now would be a good time to buy WPML.
- Don’t configure WPML, the importer will do it for you.
- Download and install the qTranslate to WPML importer plugin.
- Activate the importer and follow the instructions. Go to the manual page for step-by-step instructions and screenshots.
Keep in mind that you should expect some tiny manual fixes. The importer should do 99% of the work, but there’s a chance that some little touches will be needed by you.
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2 Responses
I have a hard time recommending WPML anymore. The code is a mess, and the plugin makes little (no?) use of caching. The Polylang plugin is definitely worth looking into.
Thank you for your feedback about WPML. Of course, if you have any feedback and ideas about how to optimize things, we are very happy to hear.
WPML code uses classes and clear semantics. There are numerous documented API calls and many theme and plugin authors work with us to ensure compatibility. We are always looking for improvements. If you find specific issues that trouble you, we will immediately look into them.
For caching, WPML uses it’s own object cache mechanism, caches queries and function fragments, caches HTML when it’s reusable and tightly integrates with object and page caching plugins. If you are using WPSC or W3TC, you will notice that it’s very difficult to break compatibility with WPML. This didn’t happen by itself.
As always, feedback is highly welcome. For best results, you should start threads in our support forum:
https://wpml.org/forums/forum/english-support/