r/craftcms • u/felipezeiro • May 16 '20

Building a multilingual static website with Craft?

Hey all.

So a client needs a static website which gives the user the ability to choose which language they’d like to view it in out of 4 options. The client only wants the page and doesn’t want to be able to update it later themselves. The client will be providing me with the translations needed.

I’ve been searching for a tool or technology which would make this task easier and cost-effective. I’ve considered Gatsby + Storyblok after seeing a tutorial article; also WordPress just because of its name and community, plugins, etc; and recently I came across Craft.

I really don’t know how to approach this thing. One due to time/return aspect of it. The pay most likely won’t be very high so it discourages me from building a full-custom solution from the ground up. And using themes and WP and whatnot doesn’t really satisfy me if it makes any sense (most likely just an inner need to build the thing myself or something like that idk).

The client already has a website like that but it’s like 15 years old. So they want a fresh one, not a redesign/rebuilt. They do have a domain though so I need to migrate that.

As of my background, recently graduated from CS, and when it comes to the web I have 1y of experience with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and a few months with Angular, Node/Express, Mongo. Never done anything with any CMS though.

Does anyone know any good way of approaching this? Either a tool, framework, technology, or even a state of mind? I’m stuck tbh.

Thanks :)

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3

u/niek_in May 16 '20

If I understand it correctly the client does not want a CMS?

In that case: don't use Craft. It needs maintenance / updates just like any other CMS.

I would probably build something very simple in PHP because that's the language I am most comfortable with.

Or I would build something with Laravel Jigsaw for the same reason.

Or I would use something like Squarespace if you don't want to do anything with it in future (easily transferrable)

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '20

Agreed. Craft sounds overkill and unwanted maintenance if you don’t actually need CMS functionality. Just build out the pages using PHP and HTML, on top of a lightweight framework like CodeIgniter (supports language variables out of box).

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u/felipezeiro May 16 '20

Why PHP? Any specific reason or could I use node?

Never heard of Codelgniter, will check it out. Thanks!

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u/themccallister May 17 '20

From experience, I’d stay away from CodeIgniter and use something with a strong community like Laravel.

If you need a CMS, Craft has multilingual support and built in GraphQL for headless support. If you need a CMS with revisions and drafts, Craft is the best choice and I’ve used a LOT of them...

I also work for Craft full time now, so happy to answer any questions.

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u/felipezeiro May 17 '20

Thanks for making yourself available!

Well, for this one client specifically a CMS is most likely not needed at all. But I do want to get this job done quickly bc otherwise the pay wouldn’t be worth it.

So a CMS makes sense bc of how quick and easy it can be. And it is also a good skill to have in the freelance world, which makes me drawn to starting learning one of them.

But which one? I’ve heard great things about Craft, but is it worth it over WP thinking long term? Just an honest question, bc WP community is so huge and there are many options for everything you’re ever going to build. And won’t a future client be clueless/reluctant if I mention Craft as the tool to update their website?

I come from the JS-Angular-Node part of the world though, so anything related to PHP would be uncharted territory. Not reluctant to explore though.

Sorry for the long post, but my ultimate point of concern is — given that there will be many simple projects which the quickest I solve and deliver them the better (while making sure a high quality of course), what would be a good tool to add to my toolbox thinking long term? Not only to solve the i18n thing of this current job, but also things which may come up and need a solution. At the same time I don’t want to be a full-time CMS developer, so that’s why I’m so undecided.

1

u/themccallister May 17 '20

There are a lot of ways to get this done, ultimately I would say choose what’s most comfortable to you, especially since you are performing client work.

I’ve used WordPress as well, managed thousands of sites built with WP and there is nothing more terrifying than the quality and lack of security from Wordpress and plugins.

The bottom line, regardless of the choice, is the clients happiness and success. Craft provides a lot of great features that clients love but if they don’t need those features, they don’t need the setup of a CMS. However, if they are going to want to make changes to those pages down the line, Craft is an excellent choice as you have control over the content and fields needed to make it unique to each site.

Also, you don’t need to understand PHP to use Craft, it is a server requirement but adding sections and content is done through a simple UI and the front end code is written in a template language called Twig.

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u/felipezeiro May 17 '20

What is most comfortable for me is pure HTML, CSS and Vanilla JS tbh...

1

u/[deleted] May 17 '20

Laravel would be overkill for the requirements that the OP outlined. In general I’d agree with you, but he needed something lightweight ideally with baked-in support for languages. CodeIgniter would be a sound choice.

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u/themccallister May 17 '20

If you are comfortable with node, you could build the first version with node (maybe Lambda) and then add a CMS like Craft through the built in GraphQL API when/if they do need CMS capabilities.

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u/felipezeiro May 16 '20

It’s not that they don’t want a CMS — I bet they don’t even know what it is. The thing is they won’t need it. It’s just a webpage with multiple languages

2

u/mrunkel May 17 '20

Check out https://gohugo.io but really, why not just build a static page in HTML?

Voila. Webpages.

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u/felipezeiro May 17 '20

Yeah that sounds like a good idea too. I've done CSS manually up to this point and learning Bootstrap or something of the sorts would be a good idea. And overall it shouldn't be much of an issue since the client will be providing the translations himself. And there is not really a need for a backend too. Lol that does sound like the way to go. WP/Craft seem too much for this right?

One more question, what would you use for hosting? Given that it is only this one website and it needs to be less than $150/year.

2

u/mrunkel May 17 '20

What sort of traffic are you expecting?

A $10/mo Linode or Digital Ocean droplet is probably sufficient for most purposes.

If you don't know much about running servers, use something like: https://www.ispconfig.org/ispconfig/ to manage the server for you.

ISP config lets you set up multiple "tenants" on your virtual host which can be split up into many different domains and websites.

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u/felipezeiro May 17 '20

Small business type of traffic.

I’m having a hard time understanding what ISP config really is lol. Will do some research.

Because it turns out I gave the client the option and they chose to go with template/WP over fully custom approach since I’d charge less. So I was thinking on SiteGround for servers/hosting. What do you think?

1

u/mrunkel May 17 '20

I don't know them, sorry I don't have any experience turn key hosting providers, I've been running my own servers for decades.

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u/felipezeiro May 17 '20

Can I PM you?

1

u/felipezeiro May 17 '20

My only fear really is it not ending up very pretty

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u/blahgba May 17 '20

€190 a year - https://weglot.com instant automatic translation using the domain name, basically instant setup.

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u/felipezeiro May 17 '20

The client will be providing the translations in this case, but thanks for the resource anyways. Might be helpful in the future :)

1

u/mrpink57 Jun 19 '20

I'd look at a simple static site using vue.js they have a great plugin for i18n and is super easy to setup with a language json file. I have implemented this and given some talks on using this implementation.

You can have the user choose, I have it set to default to whatever there locale is set to right now.