Mirroring menus, modules, footer and templates

Translated articles alone do not make a multilingual website: without its own menu items the target language cannot be navigated, language-bound modules are missing on the translated pages, and YOOtheme footers and templates only know the source language. The mirroring — step 78 of the wizard — closes these gaps: each pass with a free preview, each repeatable, each skipping what already fits.

Menu mirroring

Creates menu twins per target language — for every menu item whose target (article or category) is already translated:

• Title and alias of the twin come from the translated content; for category menu items with their own menu title, that title gets translated.
• The twins are sorted into the source language's structure — the navigation of both languages looks the same.
• The home pages are put straight: the real home page becomes home per language, the stand-in home pages created during setup are retired.
• Mirrored source menu items set to language "All" switch to the source language; items without a translatable target stay on "All" and appear in both languages.
• On YOOtheme sites the customizer's menu settings (such as dropdown widths) are transferred to the twins.
• Finally the link repair runs: internal links in the translated articles are rewired to the translations, and meta addresses (JSitemap) are moved to the now-real routes.

Module mirroring

Modules set to language "All" appear in every language anyway and stay untouched. Modules pinned to the source language would be missing on the translated pages — the analysis lists them, and the mirroring creates a translated twin per target language: title and content translated, position and visibility taken over, the page assignment switched to the menu twins. Module settings are copied unchanged.

The mirroring only creates; later changes to the source module do not travel into the twin automatically.

Footer mirroring (YOOtheme only)

YOOtheme's footer builder knows no language variants. The way YOOtheme itself documents is builder modules in the bottom position, one per language — exactly what this step builds: the footer layout from the customizer is turned into one module per language, the texts translated, internal links rewired. Only once all modules stand is the customizer footer emptied; the old state is saved to a file beforehand.

Template mirroring (YOOtheme only)

YOOtheme renders article detail pages through templates with assignment conditions — and those name the source language's categories. Translated articles therefore fell back to the plain default view. This step creates a copy of each template per target language: categories switched to the translated twins, labels translated, links rewired. Templates whose categories have no translation are skipped.

Without YOOtheme, footer and template mirroring simply report that there is nothing to do.

Deutsche Fassung