Sitecore Partial Language Fallback not falling back

Question

We are attempting to implement Alex Shyba's Partial Language Fallback module.

I believe we have everything configured correctly based on the video. We've set the fallback language for ES to EN in Sitecore. We've verified there is a ES version of the both the template and the item.

We've enabled fallback on all the fields of the Home template.

After creating the Spanish version in Sitecore, I switch to version and it appears to be properly falling back to EN. Here is how both the Master db and Web db appear in the client:

This is screen shot is the ES version on WEB db. You can see there is content in the image and link fields.

However, when I hit the site, the content returns null and fails to display.

The module is a bit of a pain because of the lack of documentation (that I can find) and good examples on the web.

Could someone provide a link to a good working example or share how they've configured multi-site, multi-language sitecore?

Answer 1

I understand very well how Alex's Partial Language Fallback tool works. I have recently posted a 10 blog series on the topic in sitecore's technical blog area. If you'd like to see the details about how to configure it and what all the configurations mean, please see this post: http://www.sitecore.net/Community/Technical-Blogs/Elizabeth-Spranzani/Posts/2014/03/Fallback-Series-Post-2.aspx

You are indeed correct, it is based on field fallback, not on the language version. You need to make sure you have the following:

1. fallback enabled in the site node of BOTH the site you are using on the front end and the shell site.
2. Both the web and master database referenced in the standardValues SupportedDatabases setting
3. Enforce version presence setting in side node set to 'false' or set to 'true' and have the version created in your language
4. The language you want to have fallback set to fallback to the main language in the system/languages section
5. The field in the 'english' version of the template is has the 'enable fallback' checkbox checked.
6. Publish the item in both language versions

You DON'T need to have different language versions of the templates, unless you have the Fallback.VaryFallbackSettingsPerLanguage in the config set to true. And I wouldn't recommend doing that, unless you want the field to fallback in some languages but not others. I haven't run into a scenario where that is necessary. But if you do decide to do this, you will need to make sure the checkbox is checked for every field in each language version.

I have a full working demo of the partial language fallback module here: https://github.com/Verndale-Corp/Sitecore-Fallback-FullDemo

Make sure to uncheck the Standard fields checkbox when in content editor, to see the 'fallback value' text show to indicate whether a field is falling back. Otherwise, it will just show 'standard values'.

Liz

Answer 2

I think you are misinterpreting how the module works. According to the documentation in the link you provided, the module detects the absense of a version in the current context language. If no version is detected, it falls back to the next available language version.

When an item is retrieved from a Sitecore database, the provider checks whether the item has versions in the requested language. If yes, then the item is returned to the caller. If there are not versions in the requested language in the database, then the provider performs fallback operation:

[Latest available item version in the fallback language is retrieved from the database]

You stated that you've set the fallback for ES to be EN, and that you have verified that an ES version of the item exists. From the modules perspective, everything is hunky dory... there is indeed a Spanish version, and so it will use it and not attempt to fallback.

That said, this doesn't explain why your field would be null while debugging. I suspect you simply need to re-publish the site in both languages.