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AMA: Vlad and Sergie Magdalin, co-founders of Webflow

almost 8 years ago from Vlad Magdalin, Co-founder / CEO @ Webflow

  • T. F., almost 8 years ago (edited almost 8 years ago )

    Hey Vlad & Sergie,

    First off: webflow is a great (prototyping) tool & your support is very speedy. I say (prototyping) because in general though it lacks a bit of granular control over the system without messing up the D&D interface. Hint: this could be a chance for a custom plug-in system.

    Now the big question: Is native multi-lingual support coming any time soon ?

    I ask this because you have a big international audience of designers that absolutely must present their websites in more than one language. And I think with your excellent CMS system already in place, it would only take minimal effort to build in this much requested multi-lingual support feature.

    Here's a quick example. Mock-up time: (right-click: "open image in a new tab")

    LanguagesLanguages

    For entries where there isn't a translation yet, you could just "ghost" (e.g show) the "original text" to avoid a broken page. Best would be to even notify the user before publishing that there is a translation missing when trying to publish e.g.

    "This page has not yet been translated. Sure to upload About (German) with the untranslated text from About (English) ?"

    1 point
    • Sergie MagdalinSergie Magdalin, almost 8 years ago (edited almost 8 years ago )

      Hey TF, good question! You’re totally right that we have designers all around the world using Webflow and building multi-language sites. It’s a bummer that in the CMS’ current state you have to hack some collections together or integrate with another service to support multiple languages. So we’ve been brainstorming some ideal flows for adding multi-language content for static and dynamic pages. It involves some heavy infrastructure changes which is why it will take a bit longer for us to implement. We're doing some heavy restructuring right now to prepare for some big upcoming features.

      I do like the idea of creating different variants of the collection item like you’ve shown in the mockups. But I think it has to start at a higher level and allow the designer to specify URLs and other settings for their targeted locales. A lot of it is up in the air though. Thanks for the suggestion!

      1 point
      • T. F., almost 8 years ago

        Thanks Sergie for letting us know that you and your team are actively working on the multi-language feature. Certainly, you know the backend infrastructure of your platform better than anyone else here, however I would just advise you not to think too complex. For example, yes unique urls are important, but for convenience are probably best if auto-generated, like e.g.: domain.com/en/page-or-article-title-in-current-language. (the url could still be changed in the actual article interface on demand)

        Any thoughts for a module 3rd party plug-in system ? Actually, would love to make my expand/collapsable module (which isn't build on top of "drop-down" and doesn't collapse when clicked outside of the container) available for other users of the platform.

        1 point
        • Sergie MagdalinSergie Magdalin, almost 8 years ago (edited almost 8 years ago )

          however I would just advise you not to think too complex

          Easier said than done. :D We're always considering whether it makes more sense to push a quick fix or invest in a long-term solution with the limited time/resources we have. That's one of the challenges of product development. Localization is one of those things we have to build from the ground up because it touches so many parts of the experience.

          Any thoughts for a module 3rd party plug-in system?

          We're thinking about it :)

          3 points