Issue on page /glossary.html term LIF has a wrong description

[acsr]

The https://6.docs.plone.org/glossary.html#term-LIF Text is completely wrong:

LIF
Language Independent Folder

A folder containing static assets, such as images and files, for a given language.

Must be similar to the definition at: https://6.docs.plone.org/i18n-l10n/translating-content.html#language-independent-content

NOTE: The behaviour of substructures need some investigation for me to get this correctly for current Plone 6 and plone.app.multilingual (seems it currently cannot contain folderish pages (at least in default Volto)

[stevepiercy]

@erral would you please take a look at this one? Neither of us are sure which is correct, the explanation in the page or the definition in the Glossary. Thank you!

[acsr]

Update: Folderish nested structures using pages work to organize and add images and files from the Volto sidebar widgets to blocks, when the path/content is already created through the classic environment or programmatically. But you cannot crete a catalog like page directly inside the Assets LIF. I managed to add blocks behaviour to the assets folder for this purpose but need to test that again.

My known issues at least out of the box in Plone 6.1.3: You currently cannot display the content of the LIF via the Volto UI when navigation to the language specific i18n titled path or try to manage workflow e.g. an Intranet Publication workflow for multilingual legal documents. I am not sure if you can use regular folders, since they are not regularly managed in Volto. You can publish the container pages when the LIF is workflow aware (default is workflow None) and use the recursive publication feature of DC Workflow.

This is integrator hardcore and an Admin/Integrator UX nightmare for people evaluating Plone Volto with multilingual without any experienced service company in the back. Plone Docs do not cover the necessary steps to do the setup from an existing regular Plone to multilingual setup. Also the LFR is missing a workflow (default is workflow None) and does not help to prepare an additional language until ready to publish.

I need to move this to another place, since it is not Glossary related. But the Glossary should be a good starting point to figure out what the terms mean and where to lookup the reference docs, and from there some guided training tour to setuop multilingual.

[acsr]

Note: The old related link https://docs.plone.org/external/plone.app.multilingual/README.html#the-assets-folder-a-shared-language-independent-folder has no proper redirection to the current docs. It seems it covers reindexing challenges mentioned here. https://community.plone.org/t/solved-reindexing-language-neutral-objects-in-gs-upgrade-step

This stuff is actually now at https://5.docs.plone.org/external/plone.app.multilingual/README.html#the-assets-folder-a-shared-language-independent-folder

[stevepiercy]

The lack of redirects is a known issue. See #1496 for how to contribute toward its resolution, even if it's just adding one more to the list.

[erral]

LIFs or Language Independents Folders are asset folders shared among all languages. If one adds a file to /en/assets it automatically shows in /es/recursos. Meaning that both assets and recursos are LIFs. They are meant to be used to share images and files among language trees, not to share content.

The concept of "Language independent content" does not exist any more with plone.app.multilingual because all content is saved in a given language tree (either in en or es).

This was something we had in the LinguaPlone times

[boss6825]

Thanks @erral, that clarifies it.
So now i think the glossary needs to be updated to :

-mention LIFs as - "they used to exist"
-describe LIFs as shared asset folders only
-note the LinguaPlone legacy to avoid confusion
would like to hear from other people too....

[Saihrithesh]

Thanks for reporting this.

I went through the glossary entry for LIF and the linked documentation you referenced. I’d like to update the glossary definition to align with the correct description for current Plone versions.

Please let me know if it’s okay for me to work on this.

[stevepiercy]

LIFs or Language Independents Folders are asset folders shared among all languages. If one adds a file to /en/assets it automatically shows in /es/recursos. Meaning that both assets and recursos are LIFs. They are meant to be used to share images and files among language trees, not to share content.

@erral thanks for the explanation. One clarification, do you mean this?

They are meant to be used to share images and files among language trees, not to share translatable text content. [phrase and emphasis added]

I want to make a clear distinction between static assets and translatable text content. Would that be accurate?

The concept of "Language independent content" does not exist any more with plone.app.multilingual because all content is saved in a given language tree (either in en or es).

This was something we had in the LinguaPlone times

This is a good reference with details https://github.com/plone/plone.app.multilingual?tab=readme-ov-file#introduction.

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@boss6825 that's a good list, but please wait until I can provide clear direction. I have some thoughts of how to proceed rattling around in my empty head.

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@Saihrithesh please read and follow First-time contributors, especially Things not to do, Contributing to Plone, and Contribute to documentation.

[erral]

LIFs or Language Independents Folders are asset folders shared among all languages. If one adds a file to /en/assets it automatically shows in /es/recursos. Meaning that both assets and recursos are LIFs. They are meant to be used to share images and files among language trees, not to share content.

@erral thanks for the explanation. One clarification, do you mean this?

They are meant to be used to share images and files among language trees, not to share translatable text content. [phrase and emphasis added]

I want to make a clear distinction between static assets and translatable text content. Would that be accurate?

Yes, that's correct.

But although they are not meant to that, it works. I mean, if one adds a News Item in the en/assets Folder, it will show as is in the es/recursos folder.

The concept of "Language independent content" does not exist any more with plone.app.multilingual because all content is saved in a given language tree (either in en or es).

This was something we had in the LinguaPlone times

This is a good reference with details https://github.com/plone/plone.app.multilingual?tab=readme-ov-file#introduction.

Let's clarify this a little: when using p.a.multilingual we have separated language trees, that's why using 'language independent content' is 'hard' or 'discouraged'.

But this does not mean that we can't hacevel such content, for instance if we don't install p.a.multilingual and use plain Plone with the content organization of our choice.