Bilingual Site Restructuring Plan

Current State Analysis

The site currently has a mix of Chinese and English content:

• Chinese homepage: chinese.md at /chinese/
• English homepage: about.md at / (also /about/)
• Bilingual pages: awards.md uses Chinese with English translations in parentheses
• English-only pages: publications.md, talks.html, services.md, grants.md, teaching.md, contact.md, cv.md
• Chinese-only content: _talks/ collection contains Chinese talk descriptions
• Navigation: Mixed Chinese/English menu in _data/navigation.yml

Goal

Create separate Chinese and English versions for each page, with:

1. Chinese homepage at /chinese/
2. English homepage at / (or /about/)
3. Mutual links between language versions
4. Consistent navigation per language

Proposed Architecture

1. Page Structure

Create parallel page sets using filename suffixes:

_pages/
├── about.md                    # English homepage (permalink: /)
├── chinese.md                  # Chinese homepage (permalink: /chinese/)
├── publications.md             # English publications
├── publications-zh.md          # Chinese publications (permalink: /publications/zh/)
├── talks.html                  # English talks listing
├── talks-zh.html               # Chinese talks listing (permalink: /talks/zh/)
├── awards.md                   # English awards (extract English translations)
├── awards-zh.md                # Chinese awards (Chinese-only content)
├── services.md                 # English services
├── services-zh.md              # Chinese services
├── grants.md                   # English grants
├── grants-zh.md               # Chinese grants
├── teaching.md                 # English teaching
├── teaching-zh.md             # Chinese teaching
├── contact.md                  # English contact
├── contact-zh.md              # Chinese contact
├── cv.md                       # English CV
└── cv-zh.md                   # Chinese CV

2. Content Strategy

• English pages: Use existing English content where available; translate Chinese content where missing.
• Chinese pages: Use existing Chinese content; translate English content where missing.
• Bilingual pages like awards.md: Split into separate language versions:
  • awards-zh.md: Chinese text only (remove English parentheses)
  • awards.md: English text only (extract English translations)
• Talks collection: Keep Chinese talk files in _talks/ but create English translations as separate files? Or create a parallel collection _talks_en/. Simpler: keep Chinese talks and add English translations within same files (as previously attempted but reverted). However, user may prefer separate English talk pages.

3. Navigation

Update _data/navigation.yml to support two language menus:

Option A: Two separate navigation files:

• _data/navigation-en.yml
• _data/navigation-zh.yml

Option B: Single file with language keys:

main_en:
  - title: "About Me"
    url: /
  - title: "Publications"
    url: /publications/
  # ...

main_zh:
  - title: "个人简介"
    url: /chinese/
  - title: "发表论文"
    url: /publications/zh/
  # ...

Update layout templates to use appropriate navigation based on page language.

4. Language Switcher

Add a language switcher component in the site header/footer that:

• Detects current page language
• Offers link to counterpart page in other language
• Uses consistent placement (e.g., top-right corner)

Implementation: Add a lang front matter to each page (e.g., lang: en or lang: zh). Use Liquid logic to generate switcher links.

5. Mutual Linking

Each page should include a prominent link to its counterpart, e.g.:

English version

中文版

Place near page title or in sidebar.

6. URL Patterns

• English pages: /page/ (existing)
• Chinese pages: /page/zh/ (or /zh/page/)

Choose consistent pattern. Recommend /page/zh/ to keep existing English URLs unchanged.

7. Collections Handling

• Talks: Create English translations of each talk file (new files _talks/icml-en.md etc.) or add English fields to existing front matter.
• Publications: Already English; need Chinese translations? Possibly not necessary as publications are international.

Implementation Steps

1. Create Chinese versions of English pages
   • Translate content
   • Set appropriate permalinks
   • Add lang: zh front matter
2. Create English versions of Chinese pages
   • Translate chinese.md to English (already exists as about.md)
   • Translate Chinese-only content in awards.md etc.
3. Split bilingual pages
   • Separate awards.md into Chinese and English versions
4. Update navigation configuration
   • Create language-specific navigation
   • Update template to switch based on page language
5. Add language switcher component
   • Modify _includes/masthead.html or _includes/sidebar.html
6. Update talk pages
   • Decide on approach for talks collection
   • Implement chosen solution
7. Testing
   • Verify all links work
   • Check language consistency
   • Validate mobile responsiveness

Considerations

• SEO: Use hreflang tags for search engines
• Fallbacks: If a page lacks translation, default to available language
• Maintenance: Future updates need to be made in both language versions

Timeline

This is a medium-sized project requiring careful content translation and template modifications. Estimated effort: 2-3 days of focused work.

Next Steps

1. Approve this architecture plan
2. Begin implementation with Chinese page creation
3. Iteratively test and refine

Plan created by Roo on 2026-03-07