Rapidweaver 8, Site Language function

Hi all.

I own Rapidweaver 7 and I’ve just downloaded the new version.
The “Site language” function sounds intriguing, but I’m not understanding how to use it.
First of all, can this function be used to create a multilanguage website?
If not, what is it for?

Thanks,
2Dme

It’s a better way to flag to search engines what language the pages on your site are in.

However it will not make a multi-language site, for that you’d need Joe Workman’s Agent stack or Stack4stacks RW Multilingual stack. There may be other stacks too

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For multilanguage projects I recommend to build two different projects and connect these projects by links. If you do so you will have no problems with different site languages etc.

Many thanks to both of you for the tips.
Our multilingual site is, indeed, 9 different projects connected by links (country flags).
You can have a look here: https://bit.ly/2J39IO8
However, isn’t it bad for SEO?

This is just one of the two approaches. There is very little for or against each approach.

I am not familiar with the Agent stack, but I use the RWML stack and I have no problems with different languages. Each language version is clearly marked as lang=en, lang=de or lang=fr and so on.

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Solutions like RWML work by Javascript. In the frontend languages will switch, that‘s right.

But you produce very complex and confusing structures in your pages. The site will slow down, the code will become bloated spaghetti code and several things like meta description you cannot configure language specific or only at great effort - at least not with the old RWML stack (maybe something has changed with the new one). Yes there are workarounds maybe for the meta description but that is not how SEO works. And sometimes you have problems with server configurations

I do not see the advantage of these solutions and gave up to use them. For me it seems bettergg to split the language versions

As the developer of the RWML stacks, please permit me to correct you on a few incorrect facts you are portraying to members of this community.

Firstly RWML is predominantly PHP / server-side based. So there are zero issues with “confusing structures”, “problems with server configurations”, “bloated spaghetti code” or a site “slow down”. The stacks were developed to a high standard and include a number of best practices that Google themselves advocate. The system is designed to make things easier for site authors to work with. Other factors like website accessibility and print / PDF output are simultaneously taken into account of too.

You can either use the stack to switch content within a page as @Rovertek has done really well or use it in a similar context to the website @2Dme has built; and use it to redirect users to different pages based on their language selection. RWML brings the benefit of cookie support, so the selected language of a user is remembered on subsequent revisits back to the website. At the end of the day, RWML is designed to help make the total website experience faster and more intuitive.

The collection of RWML stacks remain exceptionally popular. Many people have written to tell me how much they have enjoyed using RWML, the flexibility offered and its ability to solve complicated multi-language problems. Currently RWML is the third most popular stack we sell on the website. Further features are being prepared for an end of year update, which will be a free update for all v2 users. There is also a comprehensive illustrated user guide provided for free too. And I am available to answer questions anybody has about the stacks and review completed websites on a one-to-one basis.

I have used the RWML stacks myself in real websites for some of my own private clients. So I am not in a position of putting this stuff on the open market, if I don’t have confidence in the suitability or reliability of the product. I am directly accountable to clients, that this stuff works! None of the issues you talk about regarding bad SEO or sluggish pages have been a problem in the real websites where I have used RWML. And these somewhat subjective remarks are of sharp contrast to feedback I have been receiving back from actual customers of the stack, like @Rovertek.

I cannot locate any information that shows you are a customer of RWML v2 or have requested support for it. To which we can conclude your negative comments about the product don’t really hold much merit worthy of further discussion.

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I did not intend to start a controversy about multi-lingual websites. I just wanted to point out that there should be no single dogmatic approach, which misses out on some terrific features and functionality of the other approach.

Each website developer has full freedom to choose their own approach.

People who seek advice on this forum should be informed of whatever is available—not what one of us thinks is better than the other (I myself am guilty of that sometimes). But there is really only a couple of products on the market that are clearly above all others in their category.

Let’s keep an open mind.

I have the impression that I have not been understood here. It was not my intention to discredit a particular solution, I just wanted to show the way I prefer and give a few reasons for it. In the end, anyone can take what they think is better. I prefer to separate the language versions.

I bought RWML2 on Aug 23rd via Paddle (check your bookkeeping). However, I referred to RWML 1 above. I haven’t used V2 yet, because I don’t use this way to create a multilingual project anymore.

I just want to thank all of you for helping.

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