The internationalization module provides a method for synchronizing fields between various translations. This is a wonderful feature, but user experience is horrible.

When creating a new translation for a master node, the translator is presented with all fields on the node, and not just the ones he/she needs to translate. In my opinion this is confusing.

To resolve this, I've created a small helper module, which hides fields which are being synchronized when translating a node.

Unfortunately due to bugs in D6 CCK and D7 Fields relating to #access = FALSE, not all field widgets will be able to handle the method of "hiding fields" properly and this may cause validation errors when attempting to submit a node with hidden fields. To avoid this in D6, I've simply hidden the fields with CSS instead of #access = FALSE.

Below is a list of related issues I've found regarding this bug. Should you find more, please make it known in my issue queue and I'll keep the list up to date.

I would recommend, in order to resolve this problem, that simpletests are written which test with the inclusion of #access = FALSE with regards to field widgets. Hopefully this would catch the bugs and allow developers to resolve them, so modules like mine would work.

--

Option Widget OnOff
#716408: Single on/off checkbox: hook_form_alter() with ['#access'] = FALSE changes 'On' value to TRUE

Option Widget Checkboxes
#1114480: expand_checkboxes #default_value when #access=FALSE

#765962: Cannot assign default values to checkboxes when #access is set to FALSE

Decimal
#995846: Can't save decimal number with #access = FALSE

Date module
#1304344: Date values cleared, instead of saved when updating a node when $form['myfield']['#access'] = FALSE

Organic Groups
#1114402: Support for FAPI #access=FALSE

--

Some more reading on #value vs. value with regards to D6 CCK fields.
http://www.lullabot.com/articles/fapicck-confusion-value-vs-value