[Plugin: Polylang] Page loses parent on saving

Not a known bug. Although it could comes from Polylang…

The intention is to synchronise the page hierarchy between translations. So if you save a page with parent in English, and then you create a translation in German with no parent, then the parent is removed from the English page due to synchronisation.

The program also synchronises categories, tags, featured image and page template.

If there are other cases where the hierarchy is deleted, then I am interested to know the procedure to reproduce.

I was surprised to read this, so I tested it.

I made a Dutch parent with a Dutch text as child, then made an English translation without a parent. After that, the Dutch text no longer had a parent. The parent still existed. I could make the Dutch text the child again, however.

Hmmm… I’m not sure why you did this. What if the English site has a totally different structure than the Dutch site? With every translation we would have to control the original structure again… I think Polylang should only set the relationship between translated items.

I’m relatively new to WP though. Maybe I don’t see the whole picture, but to me this sounds like a strange choice.

I did introduce this sync process in 0.6 I believe. The idea come from a user who finds convenient not to redo in all pages what has already been done one time (ie assigning categories, tags, post format, featured image, page template and page hierarchy).

I understood that all this process can be boring if someone has a lot of pages to translate, so found interesting to automate the process…

Sure, it makes sense when the translated site has exactly the same structure! I understand as well about copying categories, tags, post format, featured image, page template, only the page hierarchy is bothering me…

But now I can see what you meant with “I did add too much features too quickly”. ??

What I can propose is an option (not in user interface but in wp-config.php) to disable the sync process (keeping the copy when creating the translated post / page).

That’s one extra feature!

??

Sorry for my late answer.

It happens too when all translated pages exist, all with the same parent. After editing one of these pages it loses it’s parent.

This behavior can be reproduced even on creating new pages:

– create a page with a parent
– after that click on the sites overview
– be sure that the site has a parent set and click on the plus icon for the other language
– give that page a name and save it

Now both sites have no parent.

I am using WordPress 3.3.1 (German)

Alexander, isn’t that the same as described above? The other language needs a translated parent, before you can add the child, as I understand it.

The parents are not translated on my site, because they are redirects to the first child.

Yes. If parents are not translated, the synchronisation process does not work since Polylang is looking for a translation which does not exist…

It appears that implementing this synchronization process was in fact a mistake as quite a lot of users are not happy with it (either here with page hierarchy or with page template and thumbnail in other topics).

In 0.8, there will be an option to enable/disable the synchronisation (with a define in wp-config.php). I am even not sure anymore that I have to keep the synchronization as default…

??

thx!

0.8 is released!
So… you kept the synchronization as default?

Yes finally, I kept it as default in 0.8… I added a chapter in the documentation to explain. I will see if it works like this.

Include:
define ('PLL_SYNC', false);
in wp-config.php to disable it.