Keep users on the same page when switching language variants

[dbruning]

Right now, when using GitBook’s variant switcher to change languages, the user is redirected to the homepage of the selected language space.

This is confusing for readers because they often expect to be taken to the same page in the other language, not all the way back to the start. For example:

If I’m reading /en/getting-started/setup, switching to French should ideally land me on /fr/getting-started/setup, not /fr/.

Why this matters:

Improves user experience by keeping context when switching languages.

• Makes documentation feel more professional and aligned with how other multilingual sites behave.
• Especially important for long docs where readers might be deep into a section.

Proposal:

• Enhance the variant switcher to attempt a slug match across variants.
• If the same slug exists in the target language space, take the user there. (This might also necessitate an option to not translate slugs into the target language; to be honest I was surprised that it translated slugs at all)
• If not found, fall back to the homepage as it works today.
• This would make multi-language docs much smoother for end-users and reduce friction.