In Experro, a fallback language acts as a parent language from which a given language inherits data. When content is missing from the preferred language, the system checks the fallback language for content. If the fallback language also lacks content, the system displays content from the master language, which is EN-US in Experro.
For example, English-United States can be set as the fallback language for French-France, and French-France can be set as the fallback language for Spanish-Spain. If the content is not available in Spanish-Spain, the system may fetch content from French-France because French-France has been set as the fallback language for Spanish-Spain.
Ultimate Fallback to Master Language: If the content is unavailable in both the target language and its direct fallback language, Experro retrieves the content from the default master language, English-United States. This ensures there is always some version of the content available for display.
Fallback Chain Limitation: It's important to note that Experro restricts the creation of a fallback chain that is more than one level deep for non-master languages. In the example provided, after setting French-France as a fallback language (non-master), attempting to set another language as a fallback will result in an error message.
Here's more detail on how it works and why it's useful:
- User Experience: When a user visits a website and requests content in a specific language, Experro tries to provide content in that language first. If the content is not available in the requested language, Experro automatically serves the content in the fallback language instead.
- Content Management: This feature assists content creators and managers in prioritizing translation efforts. It enables a flexible content deployment strategy, where essential content is translated into multiple languages, while less critical content may be available only in the primary or fallback languages.
- Configuration: The fallback language is typically set during language addition. English is commonly chosen as the fallback language due to its widespread use, but the selection can be based on the primary audience or the most common language among the website's user base.