Smart Language Select Disabler for Polylang

Why this plugin exists?

Changing post’s or term’s language when it has translations messes things up

Basically the translations are unlinked and there is no warning for this. You may need to change post’s language for example when you start to write a new post and notice that it’s in wrong language. When translations are involved, there’s really no use for changing the language.

Users confuse adding translations and changing post’s language

I’ve seen that users have multiple times changed post’s language when they meant to navigate to translation. Smartly disabling the select enhances the UI.

Changing the posts language is risky business anyway

Changing the language of post when it has content is prone to errors. Even though the language can be changed, the images added to content may still be in wrong language. Custom fields, relations etc are not automatically changed. Language should be changed right away before adding content.

Changing the site default language is risky business anyway

Changing the site default language is prone to errors. Even though the language can be changed, links in content may still be in wrong language. Custom fields, relations etc are not automatically changed. Language should be changed only if user knows what they are doing.

What it does?

• Checks if currently edited post or term has translations
• If it has, hides select and shows the name of current language with CSS and vanilla JS
• Removes option to change default language unless the user does not provide iknowwhatimdoing GET-parameter or allows it via filter

Composer:

$ composer require aucor/polylang-smart-language-select-disabler

With composer.json:

{
  "require": {
    "aucor/polylang-smart-language-select-disabler": "*"
  },
  "extra": {
    "installer-paths": {
      "htdocs/wp-content/plugins/{$name}/": ["type:wordpress-plugin"]
    }
  }
}

Filters

You can disable select always or build some fancy custom logic:

function my_polylang_disable_language_select($disable_select, $current_screen) {
    return true;
}
add_filter('polylang-disable-language-select', 'my_polylang_disable_language_select', 10, 2);

Allow default language change:

add_filter('polylang-disable-default-language-select', '__return_true');

= Issues=

• No disabling for media (to-do)