Language settings

In Sitefinity CMS you can localize pages and content items by creating as many language versions as required. You can create different languages for the frontend of your website as well as for the backend. Frontend and backend languages can be created independently. 

To open the language settings, in the main menu, click Administration » Settings.
The Basic Settings page opens. Choose Global Settings, and then choose Languages.

1. To add a new language, click the Add languages… button.
   The Select languages window is displayed with a list of all available languages. If you want to add different language cultures, click Show cultures.
2. Select one or more languages or cultures and click Done.
   The selected languages are added under Languages section.

   You must have one default language. This is the language that your website opens in. For each additional language, the system displays the Set as default link and Remove link. You cannot remove a default language.

   NOTE: Adding or removing a language from Global Settings initiates soft restart and database model reset operations to reflect the new language in the database schema. For more information about SitefinityCMS application restarts see  Application restart.

   When you have added more than one language, the Multilingual URLs section appears.

   NOTE: If you are using multisite management, the newly added language is not assigned to any of the sites. You need to do this manually for all sites. For more information, see Multiple site management in multilingual mode » Adding languages to individual sites.

3. Select how the URLs of the pages will appear in each of the added languages.

   IMPORTANT: In multisite mode, you cannot choose how multilingual URLs appear. They are added as directories.

   Choose between the following:
   • Directories
     You use one domain and the different language versions are represented by different, automatically created directories.
     For more information about URL generation, see Language prefixes in page URLs below.
   • Different domains
     You use different domain names for each language. The system displays an input field for each language that you have added.
   • In each field, enter the respective domain name.
4. When you are finished, click Save changes.

After you have added a language, you can translate Translate pages and Translate content items and taxonomies in this language.

1. To add more backend languages, click Manage backend languages » Add languages…
   The Select languages window appears, displaying a list of all available languages. If you want to add different language cultures, click Show cultures.
2. Select one or more languages or cultures and click Done.
   The selected languages are added under Languages for the backend section.

   You must have one default language. This is the language that your website backend opens in. For each additional language, the system displays the Set as default link and Remove link. You cannot remove a default language.

3. Click Close languages for the backend system link.
4. Click Save changes.

After you have added a backend language, you must install an existing language pack or translate the interface labels and messages. For more information, see Backend languages and labels.

If you have created your languages in directories, by default, pages in the default language do not have language prefixes in their URLs.

For example, if you have English as default language and French as secondary, the URLs look in the following way:

• In English: www.mysite.com/contacts
• In French: www.mysite.com/fr/contacts

If you want the English page to have the name of its directory in the URL, perform the following:

1. Click Administration » Settings » Advanced.
2. In the treeview on the left, click Resources » UrlLocalizationStrategies » SubFolderUrlLocalizationStrategy » Parameters » Create new.
3. In Key, enter includeSubfoderPrefixForDefaultLanguage
4. In Value, enter True
5. Save your changes and restart the application.