translatable, translation enabled, multilingual, language-aware, language-alterable

Follow up for #1977784: Content language settings configuration page needs to determine what entities and bundles to include →

Problem/Motivation

confusing terms: translatable, multilingual, language-aware, untranslatable, non-translatable, not translatable, enable translation, translation enabled/disabled/not enabled
It's confusing in code, code comments, and UI

UI

In the UI, to enable translation, the checkboxes usually are for making it "translatable".

• admin/structure/types/manage/article/fields/node.article.field_image where parts of the image field can be checked off to be "Translatable elements"
• admin/config/regional/content-language content language settings page where the header to the column is "translatable"
• admin/structure/types/manage/article where Translation is "Enable translation"
• admin/structure/types/manage/article/fields/node.article.body/field-settings is "Users may translate this field."

code and the code comments

the translatable setting is really (imo) whether translation is enabled
and that is set only when something is translatable. things that are not translatable do not have 'translatable' set either way.

core/lib/Drupal/Core/Entity/Annotation/EntityType.php

  /**
   * Boolean indicating whether entities of this type have multilingual support.
   *
   * At an entity level, this indicates language support and at a bundle level
   * this indicates translation support.
   *
   * @var bool (optional)
   */
  public $translatable = FALSE;

core/modules/node/lib/Drupal/node/Plugin/Core/Entity/Node.php

/**
 * Defines the node entity class.
 *
 * @EntityType(
 *   id = "node",
 *   label = @Translation("Content"),
 *   bundle_label = @Translation("Content type"),
 *   module = "node",
 *   controllers = {
 *     "storage" = "Drupal\node\NodeStorageController",
 *     "render" = "Drupal\node\NodeRenderController",
 *     "access" = "Drupal\node\NodeAccessController",
 *     "form" = {
 *       "default" = "Drupal\node\NodeFormController"
 *     },
 *     "translation" = "Drupal\node\NodeTranslationController"
 *   },
 *   base_table = "node",
 *   revision_table = "node_revision",
 *   uri_callback = "node_uri",
 *   fieldable = TRUE,
 *   translatable = TRUE,

core/modules/language/language.module

/**
 * Returns a list of supported entity types.
 *
 * @return array
 *   An array of entity type names.
 */
function language_entity_supported() {
  $supported = array();
  foreach (entity_get_info() as $entity_type => $info) {
    if (!empty($info['translatable'])) {
      $supported[$entity_type] = $entity_type;
    }
  }
  return $supported;
}

core/modules/translation_entity/translation_entity.module

function translation_entity_preprocess_language_content_settings_table(&$variables) {
  module_load_include('inc', 'translation_entity', 'translation_entity.admin');
  _translation_entity_preprocess_language_content_settings_table($variables);
}

/**
 * Stores entity translation settings.
 *
 * @param array $settings
 *   An associative array of settings keyed by entity type and bundle. At bundle
 *   level the following keys are available:
 *   - translatable: The bundle translatability status, which is a bool.
 *   - settings: An array of language configuration settings as defined by
 *     language_save_default_configuration().
 *   - fields: An associative array with field names as keys and a boolean as
 *     value, indicating field translatability.
 *   - columns: An associative array of translation synchronization settings
 *     keyed by field names.
 */
function translation_entity_save_settings($settings) {
  foreach ($settings as $entity_type => $entity_settings) {
    foreach ($entity_settings as $bundle => $bundle_settings) {
      // The 'translatable' value is set only if it is possible to enable.
      if (isset($bundle_settings['translatable'])) {
        // Store whether a bundle has translation enabled or not.
        translation_entity_set_config($entity_type, $bundle, 'enabled', $bundle_settings['translatable']);

(see #1977784: Content language settings configuration page needs to determine what entities and bundles to include → also)

core/modules/translation_entity/translation_entity.admin.inc
for example, function _translation_entity_form_language_content_settings_form_alter

Proposed resolution

• In #1977784-12: Content language settings configuration page needs to determine what entities and bundles to include → @plach suggested renaming the translatable annotation to multilingual
• Maybe some cleaning up of comments.
• Maybe a way to store if something is translatable (multilingual/capable of having translation enabled or disabled) in the config/arrays
• ?

Remaining tasks

Discuss.
Document.
Discuss if there is a need to make the UI more consistant, if so, open an issue.

User interface changes

TBD

API changes

TBD

Related Issues

• #1446382: Need a reliable way to determine if a specific bundle for an entity type is translatable → (fixed in 8.x. it's open for backport to 7.x)
• #1977784: Content language settings configuration page needs to determine what entities and bundles to include →