Save Entry form values as Draft to translated site versions on a single submit

Question

I have an Entry field layout where only a few Plain Text fields are translatable. Users can edit these Entries from front-end, and I'm looking for the most efficient way to let them save the translations as Draft from a single submit.

I know that I can force the site language where the Entry is saved to using this to the form:

{{ input('hidden', 'siteId', site.id) }}

But this is saving the whole form to this site, not a specific field.

Is there any way to save fields independently to a specific site?

The only solution I found is to:

• Duplicate the translated fields to non-translated fields
• Add all of them on the front-end and hide them in the CP
• On save, add an Event in a custom module to store their respective values to the correct site

This works, but doesn't sound simple and clean at all.

Answer 1

You're not going to be able to pull this off with the stock elements/save-element action by itself.

In addition to the workarounds you mention, you could consider handling the form submission with JavaScript, POSTing the form (with a different site ID and values for the translatable fields) once for each site, in a seamless manner.

A final option, which is possibly the cleanest (albeit not necessarily the simplest) is to forego the core elements/save-element action altogether, by implementing the necessary logic in a custom controller action in a custom module.

FWIW, the recent launch of Craft Generator has made scaffolding both custom modules and individual system components (e.g., controllers) a bit simpler.