We tend to read extensively ? by being on the web and a few key items have hit me recently through reading Tevita & 'Anapesi Ka'ili's writings on the Importance of Language to Ethnic/Tongan identity/integration and a number of other material readily available on the Internet #1, #2, #3.

We can only improve matters of understanding Tongan, through proactive integration of Tongan language into our publications, ka e tautautefito ki he ngaahi ongoongo pe fakamatala mei he ngaahi va'a fakapule'anga pe ngaahi kautaha lalahi. (English: especially the general access, news from Government Organisations and Large Corporates.)

This leads me to review the Web/Content Management System we see here on www.Nomoa.com with the additional prioritised features necessary to promoting Tongan Language/Culture.

• Offline Editing
• Multilingual Content Administration
• Content Versioning

Take a look at what's possible over at http://www.tbu.to [Plone Site]

If Language is a critical component of understanding, evolving culture then Multilingual Content Administration is a significant priority. [or should be]

Offline Editing

For me, and would be the case for any sizeable website published from Tonga then Offline Editing is just critical because of the lousy/inconsistent Internet access/speed out of the country (as opposed to sitting on your high/stable bandwidth from home in the US/Aust etc.)

Of course if you have the eternal patience of Kepaleli, then offline editing isn't such a big issue for you.

MultiLingual Content Administration

Two Open Source Web Content Mangement Systems provide support for Offline Editing and Multilingual Content Administration: Joomla! and Plone.

Joomla! is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems on the planet. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Joomla! is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable.

Plone is powerful and flexible. It is ideal as an intranet and extranet server, as a document publishing system, a portal server and as a groupware tool for collaboration between separately located entities.

Visit bTonga

Now, most CMSs I've come across support MultiLingual interface (that is, you can have different language menu items) but I have only come across two open source CMSs that supports both MultiLingual Interface and an integrated Multi-Lingual Content.

In a multi-lingual content site, you can access different translations of a published article through the web site's interface, likewise you can navigate through the site and a specific language's content solely in that language.

Joomla!'s Multilingual Framework

Joomla!'s support for multilingual content come's through an extensions called Joom!Fish.

The Joom!Fish is an add-on component for Joomla! which allows you to maintain and organize your manual translated content in your Joomla! database.

The key features of the fish are:

• Possibility for an unlimited amount of languages
• Possibility to MANUAL translate all dynamic content of your Joomla! installation in ONE database
• Overview of the changed contents in the Translation list
• Support for all the core components/modules of Joomla!
• Frontend component for language selection

Unfortunately, I've only discovered this feature so I haven't tried it. The only thing I'm wary of is Joomla!'s templating/themeing system but since I can't design a theme worth peanuts that shouldn't be such a high priority.

The next thing to do on this front is to install it and see how it 'feels.'

Plone's Multilingual Framework

MultiLingual Content support in Plone is through the extensions/product called LinguaPlone.

LinguaPlone aims to be the multilingual/translation solution for Plone, and achieves this by being as transparent as possible and by minimizing the impact for existing applications and Plone itself.

It utilizes Archetypes references to do the translation, and all content is left intact both on install and uninstall - thus, it will not disrupt your content structure in any way. It also works with WebDAV and FTP.

LinguaPlone doesn't require a particular hierarchy of content, and will work with any layout of your content space.

Some benefits of LinguaPlone

• Totally transparent, install-and-go.
• Each translation is a discrete object, and can be workflowed individually.
• This also means that it works with WebDAV and FTP.
• Translations are kept track of using AT references.
• You can multilingual-enable your types without affecting their operation outside LinguaPlone.
• Even if you uninstall LinguaPlone after adding multilingual content, all your content will be intact and will work as separate objects! The only thing that will be inactive is the references between the objects. If you re-install it, they will be back. It's very non-intrusive.
• Supporting multilingual capabilities is a 4 (!) line addition to your Archetypes class, and does not alter the functionality of the class when used outside LinguaPlone.
• Fully integrated with ATContentTypes, so the basic content types are translatable.
• Supports language-independent fields (example: dates, first/last names) for fields you want to be the same across translations, and updated in all languages if one of them changes.
• Uses the notion of canonical versions, so you can do interesting things with workflow, like invalidate all translations of a document when the master copy has changed.

I've played with Plone's Multilingual Framework a little over at http://www.tbu.to and it grows on you. There is a little learning curve to get things up and running as I would expect it, but the results are up for others to take a look at.

The other great advantage with Plone is that you can actually go to your bookshop (http://www.amazon.com) and buy a couple of books to hand hold you through. Although one of the better books The Definitive Guide to Plone, you can buy is already available for free (as html/pdf) @ http://www.plone.org.

The only gripe so far about Plone is that I haven't got it's mechanics down so haven't got external editing through my bTonga blog client connected. Plone/Zope supports its own external editor but I really like the external and offline editing.

Trust me, if you ever get thrown into the boonies and need to update a website you are going to crave for this featureset.