How should I configure the Elia plugin? [2/3]

In this guide we will be showing you how to translate your website pages into Basque by using the Elia plugin. The Elia plugin, designed for websites developed using WordPress, is the outcome of the collaboration between the Elhuyar Foundation and the PuntuEUS Foundation. This plugin will enable you to make your website multilingual by offering you the chance to translate the existing content on your website into Basque. Specifically, it gives you the possibility of translating from Spanish, French, English, Catalan and Galician into Basque.

If you want to read the rest of the articles in this series, you can find them below:

• To install the plugin [1/3]
• To make the translations [3/3]

Enabling the plugin

To do this, you need to click on the “Plugins” section located on the left-hand side of the WordPress administration site.

The list of plugins that have been installed on your website will be displayed. Find “Elia” in this list and click on the “Activate” option that will appear below the name. That will enable the plugin and make it ready for use.

When you enable the plugin, an alert will be displayed requesting that Elia be set up. To do this, click on the “set up Elia” button.

selecting language. Once the language has been specified, click on “Next”.

This is where you can select the languages you want to establish on your website. The free version of Elia only makes translations into Basque, but you can also add any other language to the website; in that case, you will be responsible for doing the translations yourself or else you can use a paying version. To add Basque, you will have to click on the “Basque” option. Once the languages have been selected, you can proceed to the next step.

In the next step, you have the chance to adjust some setups. If you do not need to do so, click on “Next” and then on “Finish” on the next page.

Accessing the API

The Elia plugin will make your website multilingual; all that has to be done now is to translate the rest of the website content into the remaining languages. You can do these translations yourself or use the Elia translator. The free version of the plugin gives you the option of translating content into Basque by using the Elhuyar neural translator. You will need to use the paying version to do the translations into the remaining languages; you can obtain more information about this by going to info@elia.eus.

To do this you will need an API key that allows you to access the Elia API. If you have a .EUS domain name, you will be able to obtain the API key free of charge by requesting it. You will need to make the request by completing the form available at https://labur.eus/elia-api. On it you need to specify your .EUS domain name, your name and surname, and the email address where you want to receive the API key.

If you have a .EUS domain name, the use of the Plugin is free of charge; so when you request it, you will have to specify your .EUS domain name. A limit will be set to prevent overuse of the translator; therefore, no more than 20,000 words per month can be translated. The Plugin will check that the translation requests made have come from the specified domain name. If the requests are made from elsewhere, they will be rejected.

However, if you have a .EUS domain name that has been redirected to another domain name, in that case, too, you will be able to use the plugin free of charge. Obviously, when you request the API key, you will have to specify your .EUS domain name instead of your primary domain name.

Once you have obtained the API key, click on the “Elia” option that you will find in the left- hand column of your website’s management panel.

At the beginning of the page that is displayed you will see the option to specify the API key. You will need to add your API key data to the “Api id” and “Api Key” fields that you will see there. After specifying each one in its corresponding field, click on the “Save” button. When the key has been correctly saved, you will see the message “Option has been correctly saved”.

Specifying the language URL format (optional)

Now that you are on the setup page of the Elia plugin that we have just seen, you will have the possibility of adjusting some other setups so that you can establish a setup better suited to your website. One of them is to specify the URL format that each language will have. You have three options:

1. Each language can have its own subfolder. In other words, adibidea.eus/eu/ for content in Basque, adibidea.eus/es/ for content in Spanish, etc.
2. Each language can have its own subdomain. For example, eu.adibidea.eus for Basque, fr.adibidea.eus for French, etc.
3. The language can be added as an address parameter. For example, adibidea.eus? lang=eu for Basque, adibidea.eus?lang=en for English, etc.

We regard the first of these options as the most appropriate, but you can choose any of them, whichever you find the most appropriate. To specify the format you want, go to the “Language URL-format” section, and after selecting, click on the “Save” option.

If you want to read the next number of the series of articles, read the article How are translations done with the Elia plugin?