multisite multi language decision making

[alan-s]

I have been asked by a friend to produce 3 websites in 4 different languages.

I dont see any multisite functionality and joomlafish seems a way off - and does it create separate language tables?

Friend in question just wants replica sites - eg english first, then straight translation into spanish,french and portuguese.

Ideal solution would be one installation and separate databases. Is there a way of simply switching config files based on three different versions? For example somehow switching config files based on XXX? (where xxx is the holy grail here)

Having said the above if this is not possible then separate installs for each domain and language is fine - a pain to patch but not that bad really. All that is required then is switching languages somehow -I could see this solved with a drop down javascript select that detects the url and jumps to the relevant language site. BUt this is all starting to get a bit messy.

ANother CMS. Mmm not likely as mosCE and Mambo Joomla has won me over bigtime but I am open to suggestions.

What I want to avoid is a big mess. Some strong tips and guiding voice for this project most welcome.

alan-s

[user deleted]

Mod note, moved to correct forum; Joomla, General Questions >> Tech Zone, Language Zone, Multilingual Sites