ZWH Multilingual Translate self-updates

Manage multilingual content with AI/API auto-translation, manual editing, a frontend language switcher, and clean language-prefixed URLs.

Description

ZWH Multilingual Translate lets you run a fully multilingual WordPress site. Each language version is a standard WordPress post. Translations are linked via a shared group ID so the language switcher always resolves to the correct post.

Core features:

• Configure any combination of 39 languages in Settings
• Each translation is its own WordPress post (draft and publish independently)
• Auto-translate via DeepL, Google Translate, OpenAI (GPT-4o), Claude, or Gemini
• "Duplicate" option copies content as-is for manual translation
• Language management meta box on every post/page editor
• Frontend language switcher — shortcode [zwh_language_switcher] and widget
• Clean URLs: /fr/post-slug, /de/post-slug for non-default languages; default language keeps /post-slug
• Automatic hreflang tags in head for SEO
• RTL support for Arabic, Hebrew, and other right-to-left languages
• Language column in the post list screen

Installation

1. Upload the zwh-ml-translate folder to /wp-content/plugins/.
2. Activate the plugin in Plugins > Installed Plugins.
3. Go to Settings > Multilingual and: a. Set your default language. b. Add the languages you want to translate into. c. Choose which post types should be translatable. d. Optionally configure a translation API and key.
4. Go to Settings > Permalinks and click Save Changes to flush rewrite rules.
5. Open any post or page — the Translations meta box appears in the right sidebar.

How to translate a post

1. Open any post in the editor.
2. In the Translations sidebar, confirm "This post is written in" is set correctly.
3. Save. A translation group UUID is created automatically.
4. For each target language, click Duplicate (copy as-is) or AI translate (requires API key).
5. The new translation opens as a draft. Edit and publish when ready.

Shortcode

[zwh_language_switcher] — place anywhere on a page.

Attributes:

• style="inline" (default) or style="dropdown"
• show="name" (default), show="code", or show="both"

Translation APIs

DeepL — Best for European languages, 500k chars/month free Google Translate — Broad language support OpenAI GPT-4o — Excellent nuance, handles HTML well Claude (Anthropic) — Excellent nuance, handles HTML well Google Gemini — Good quality, free tier available

Frequently Asked Questions

After saving settings, language URLs return 404

Go to Settings > Permalinks and click Save Changes to flush WordPress rewrite rules.

Can I translate custom post types?

Yes — enable any public post type in Settings > Multilingual > Translatable post types.

Does the default language URL change?

No. Default language posts keep their normal WordPress URLs (/post-slug). Only translations get a language prefix (/fr/post-slug).

Changelog

1.0.0

• Initial release.
• 39 supported languages.
• Auto-translate via DeepL, Google Translate, OpenAI, Claude, Gemini.
• Duplicate-and-edit workflow for manual translations.
• Language switcher shortcode and widget.
• Language-prefixed URLs with hreflang SEO tags.
• RTL support for Arabic, Hebrew, and similar languages.

Upgrade Notice

1.0.0

Initial release.