Hello,
We are working on a Drupal multilingual site, having the i18 and locale modules installed. I now understand quite well how this Internationalization works, but we still can't get exactly the rendering we want. What we want is simple:
Whatever his language, a user should be able to see all contents, even if their is no translation available for his default language. In that case, he should see the text either in its original language or in English, set up as pivot language. Our order was : 1. User language ; 2. English ; 3. Other language.
But Drupal doesn't seem to allow that. The following node clearly says:
"When you navigate the site using multiple languages, the pages will just show the content for the chosen language plus the ones that haven't a definde language."
http://drupal.org/node/67827
We have tried 2 ways to go around this limitation, but there are not satisfactory:
1/ First define a content as without language before it is translated. But this doubles the content upon translation
2/ Add a replacement text on top of all languages with no translation, like "This text is not available in English. We would welcome a translation. If you have the proper rights, just Edit this page to tranlate it".
The inconvenient with this solution is that the content appears as being also in the other language on the bottom menu (after Add comment, etc.) though it is not translated.