[request] best practice workflow for new website

What a lot of question! I will try not to miss one…

Menus:
1. yes
2. yes
You are obliged to create the category before adding it to the menu. As far as I know there no option to automatically add categories in menus (as there is for top pages).

Categories:
1. As you want. You are not obliged to have all categories translated.
2. If you assign a category to a post, if the category translation already exists then it will be automatically assigned to post translation.

Flags:
1. The flag does not appear if there is no content in that language.
2. This is possible if you use the template tag ‘pll_the_languages’ that you can put anywhere in your theme (not if you use the widget or the language switcher in a menu)
Example:

<ul><?php pll_the_languages(array('hide_if_no_translation' => 1));?></ul>

3. There is not such possibility in Polylang. However, I believe taht this should be realizable with some code and external library. You can refer to: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/plugin-polylang-flags-in-dropdown-list

– translation not available
It is possible to include the language switcher inside the loop of your theme and so use flags dependent of the post.
Example:

<?php global $post_id;?>
<ul><?php pll_the_languages(array('post_id' => $post_id));?></ul>

Note that all option of the template tag pll_the_languages are described in the documentation.

What a fast reply! and you didn’t even miss one question!
Thank you ??

Most questions are clear ??

Categories
I’ll need all categories & subcategories in all languages.

So, to connect English (default) & translations I have to do it through the “Language” dropdown when creating a new category, right?

Because I have 3 levels of categories’ hierarchy, it looks like I better start from the top hierarchies going down to subcategories; I tried assigning a translation but it had no parent in its language… confusing for a newbie…
(Does the “Parent” dropdown work differently than usual?)

Flags
I’m using them 2 times in a widget (header & aside), so they are visible all the time. Not a big problem, I’ll publish only the languages I have completely translated and I’ll add the new ones as the translators are ready.
I hope I can add a new language later on the website, right?

translation not available
hmm, it seems safer to wait for all translations before publishing a post, users may be confused otherwise.

Thank you very much until now, keep it up!

Once the English category is created, you just have to click on the ‘+’ in the category list to add a new translation. It is better to start from the top of the hierarchy, thus when you translate a child, the correct parent should be proposed by default. NB: you may have to refresh your screen by clicking on the ‘categories’ menu on the left side of your screen as there is still some glitches when WordPress updates its screen with ajax.

I hope I can add a new language later on the website, right?

Yes of course.

Nice ??

but is it also possible to (temporary) disable/park/delete languages?
(e.g. if changes have to be made or the translator gets sick…)

It would be handy as a feature (if it’s not there) and I’m wondering what the consequences can be if I delete a language some day (files left behind etc and how to clean up)

Thank you very much ??

There is currently no way to disable a language.

If you delete it, you will loose all the links between the content and the language but the content will be kept intact. Individual posts and pages will even be accessible to the public (with the same permalink if you chose not to add the language code in url). Archives will no more be accessible.

OK, clear

thanks a lot for this great plugin, I’ll have to make a final test with everything before going on air, but it looks fine up to now.

I’m curious what you’re coming next up with ??