How can I create a multilanguage multistore?

Question

I want to create two new shops beside my current one. The domain should be the same, but I want to add some suffixes to the domain for the other two stores. So I want a shop structure like the following:

Multistores:

Shop 1: example.com/
Shop 2: example.com/eu/
Shop 3: example.com/us/

Multilanguages:

Shop 2: example.com/eu/en/
Shop 2: example.com/eu/fr/

Shop 3: example.com/us/en/
Shop 3: example.com/us/fr/

For this reason I have created the following structure inside the magento backend:

Shop 2 (code: base_eu)          Store EU                German (code: eu_de)
                                                        English (code: eu_en)

Shop 3 (code: base_us)          Store US                German (code: us_de)
                                                        English (code: us_en)

Furthermore I have created two subdirectories inside my magento root folder (eu/ and us/) which represents the "Shop 2" and "Shop 3" and I have changed the base url of this two shops to example.com/eu/ and example.com/us/.

In Addition I have created a lot of symlinks (app, errors, includes, js, lib, media, skin, var, index.php) and I have copied the .htaccess inside the subdirectories eu/ and us/.

After this I have modified the htaccess files in both folders:

eu/.htaccess -> SetEnv MAGE_RUN_CODE eu_de
us/.htaccess -> SetEnv MAGE_RUN_CODE us_de

So the default store view of both pages is the german store view.

A another solution is to edit the index.php of both directories and add something like this:

$mageRunCode = 'base_eu';
$mageRunType = 'website';
Mage::run($mageRunCode, $mageRunType);

So I can avoid the htaccess changes, but the result would be the same.

This works great so far, but how can I add the other store views now? Should I add another subdirectories inside the directories for each language or is there a better way to do this?

EDIT

I have tried something like this now:

magento_root
    app
    ...
    eu
      (symlinks app, media, ...)
      index.php
      .htaccess
      en
        (symlinks app, media, ...)
        index.php
        .htaccess

It's working so far, but this seems to be a little bit tricky.

Answer 1

I you want to do this with sub directories you have to create symlinks to your Magento folder: ln -s /home/example/example.com/html/app/ app

ln -s /home/example/example.com/html/includes/ includes

ln -s /home/example/example.com/html/js/ js

ln -s /home/example/example.com/html/lib/ lib

ln -s /home/example/example.com/html/media/ media

ln -s /home/example/example.com/html/skin/ skin

ln -s /home/example/example.com/html/var/ var

also copy the index.php to your folders

Answer 2

I have such a module running, which makes websites per country. This way you can adjust the pricing per country/currency and redirect users automatically to the right store. I would suggest this instead of your solution as with time the site will be really slow.