[TYPO3] easier way to do translations for pages

[Ralph Grier]

Hello,

I am facing a problem I am having in a multilingal site.  I have a situation
where on every page of my site I have flags so that when the user clicks on
the flag, it takes you to the translation of that particular page in the
language of the flag.  The problem is that some of my pages dont have
translations.  In those cases, what I am doing now is direct people to the
home page of that language.

This is the way I am doing it, I am basically manually replacing markers in
the template file. for example:

page.10.marks.LANGUAGE1 = HTML
page.10.marks.LANGUAGE1.value = <img alt="Deutsch"
src="/images/flags/de.png" />
page.10.marks.LANGUAGE1.value.typolink.parameter.data=TSFE:id
page.10.marks.LANGUAGE1.value.typolink.additionalParams = &L=1
page.10.marks.LANGUAGE1.value.typolink.title = Deutsch

and so on.. for the other languages.

On a particular page, if a translation doesnt exist in german, then I do an
extension template like so, so just direct them to the home page.

page.10.marks.LANGUAGE1.value.typolink.parameter.data=
page.10.marks.LANGUAGE1.value.typolink.parameter= 1

The problem is that I have 4 slots for flags and 5 languages (because I dont
put a flag for the language you are currently in).  and it is increasingly
difficult to manage the extension templates especially if you have more than
1 language for which a translation doesnt exist.  Particularly if the flags
dont appear in the same place.   For example on the english page Spanish may
appear on the Language2 slot, but on the german page, spanish may be in the
Language1 slot.

Anyway.  Sorry for the long background,  but does anyone know of an easier
way to do this.  I am looking for a way to just detect if a page exists in a
certain language and if so, show its link to that page, if not show the link
to the home page of that language.

I guess thats my issue, How do you detect in typoscript or any other way, if
a page exists in a certain language?

Thank you.