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Working with multi-language content

Ektron enables authoring, organizing, publishing, and versioning of Web content—in multiple languages. Ektron has a fully-developed, Web content localization solution that combines Web content management with localization/translation management, and supports creating content in any language supported by the Unicode standard. Ektron provides multi-language support for the following areas:

Multi-language editions of the same content have the same ID number but are differentiated by a language attribute. As a result, a Web page template can link to a content item, but what appears is determined by the selected language. There are 2 ways that content’s language can be selected:

Developers can use the following server controlA server control uses API language to interact with the CMS and Framework UI to display the output. A server control can be dragged and dropped onto a Web form and then modified.s for multi-language content:

The following Ektron components are affected by multi-language support:

Setting Up a multi-lingual website

The following steps provide an overview for setting up a multi-lingual website.

  1. Enable multi-lingual support in web.config.
  2. Enable languages that your site will support.
  3. Set a default content language, one that will be used by the majority of your site’s content. If you had a previous version of Ektron and selected a default language on the Database Upgrade Utility, be sure that default language matches the one in web.config.
  4. Add language selection function to templates so that your site can be viewed in another language.
  5. Create multi-language content.
  6. Modify page content based on language selection.
  7. Modify an image based on language selection.
  8. Create a metadata definition for each supported language.
    See Creating multi-language metadata.
  9. Set up approval chains for new content.
    See Setting approval chains
  10. Set up multi-lingual collectionA list of Ektron content links for display on a Web page.s.
    See Working with a collection in a multi-language system
  11. Set up multi-lingual menus.
    See Creating a menu in another language
  12. Set up multi-lingual taxonomies.
    See Working with taxonomies in a multi-language environment

Enabling/disabling support for multiple language content

  1. Open siteroot\web.config.
  2. Set the value of ek_EnableMultilingual to 1.

    NOTE: To disable, set the value to zero (0).

  3. Save web.config.

Determining which languages are available

Prerequisite

Only members of the Administrator Group or those assigned to the XLIFF-Admin role can view, add, or edit language settings. See also: Using the roles screens .

A locale consists of a language and a region. For example, English (United States) describes the variation of English used in the United States, as opposed to English (English U.K.) used in the United Kingdom.

Each locale's identifier consists of a language code and region code.

  • fr-FR = Language:French + Region:France
  • pt-BR = Language:Portuguese + Region:Brazil
  • es_419-AR = Language:Latin American Spanish + Region Argentina

You can create a new locale, if needed.

To determine which locales are available for creating content:

  1. Go to Workarea > Settings > Localization > Languages and Regions. The Edit Language Details screen lists locales in which you can create content on your site.
  2. Click Enable. The Enable Languages and Regions screen appears.

  3. Each language has 2 check boxes:
    • To enable a language in the Workarea and let site visitors select it when viewing the site, check the box in the check mark () column.

      NOTE: If you select , the box in the column is checked automatically. This is because, if you let users view the language on the site, it must be enabled in the Workarea.

      The default content language on a drop-down list is determined in the ek_DefaultContentLanguage element of the web.config file.

    • To enable a language in the Workarea only, check a box in the triangle () column. The language populates the language drop-down lists in Ektron. So, you can enable languages in the column while you are translating the site but are not ready to publish that content. When you complete the translation, check the column.

If you enable only one language on the Enable Languages and Regions screen, fields that prompt the user to select a language do not appear in Ektron. Instead, all content is created in that language.

Disabling a language

To disable any language, uncheck its box in the column of the Enable Languages and Regions screen.

Before disabling the default language, you must assign a new one. If you disable a language for which content exists, that content remains in the database but no one can access it, either from within Ektron or when visiting your site, unless you later re-enable that language.

Setting the default language

When you install Ektron, the default language is US-English (1033). The default language determines which edition of content is displayed if a site visitor does not select a language, or a visitor selects a language other than the default and goes to page for which content does not exist in the selected language. In that case, Ektron looks for the selected language's Fallback Locales. For more information, see Setting the fallback locale. If content is not available in any of its Fallback locales, Ektron displays that content in the default language (if available).

IMPORTANT: You must enable a language before setting it as the default. See also: Determining which languages are available

To change the default language for your multi-language website:

  1. Open yourwebsite\web.config.
  2. Set the value of ek_DefaultContentLanguage to the locale id of the default language. For example, 1031 for German. For a list of locale ids, see Ektron Workarea > Settings > Localization > Languages and Regions.
  3. Save web.config.

Viewing your site in another language

When a site visitor selects a language then goes to a page on your site, Ektron uses the following criteria to determine which language edition of content to display.

  1. Display content in the selected language, if available.
  2. If that edition is not available, check the language's Fallback Locale. If it is set and content is available in that language, display that. See also: Setting the fallback locale.
  3. If content is not available in the Fallback Locale, display it in the default language. See also: Setting the default language.
  4. If no editions are available, display nothing.

To let site visitors to view your site in any enabled language, your developer places a LanguageSelect server control on any template. See also: LanguageSelect

You can also indicate a language-edition by adding a language parameter to a quicklinkA special kind of hyperlink that jumps to another content item on your Web site. (A regular hyperlink jumps to a Web page on the internet.). For example, products.aspx?LangType=1033 displays the English (US) edition of the products.aspx content. This syntax automatically sets the language cookie.

NOTE: For a list of the decimal value of each supported language, see Ektron Workarea > Settings > Localization > Languages and Regions.

Creating an external link to a page of foreign content

If another website links to a multi-lingual page on your site, the URL must include the language ID parameter. For example:

www.ektron.com/web-content-management-solutions.aspx?LangType=1036

Creating multi-language metadata

Part of managing a multi-language website involves creating and deploying multi-language metadata. There are 2 scenarios for doing this.

  • Authors create content in the default language. Then, content is sent to a translation agency, translated, and imported back to Ektron. As part of that effort, text-based metadata is translated. To learn how to manage this multi-language metadata, see Managing multi-language metadata.
  • Authors create content is separate languages. For example, your site has French content for French site visitors, and different Spanish content for Spanish site visitors. To manage this multi-language metadata, see Creating metadata for content in any language.

Managing multi-language metadata

This section explains how to set up the xliff export/import process so that text-based metadata is translated along with text in the content, summaryA short description that supplements a content item's title on a Web page. Content authors compose a summary when creating or editing content. Server controls and widgets can display a content title and summary to attract readers to the full story. Summaries can include images and text formatting., and so on. It is easiest to set this up while creating a metadata definition. However, if you already have metadata definitions in a source language and now want them translated along with content, procedures for that type of setup are also provided.

Prerequisites

Creating multi-language metadata while creating a metadata definition

To create multi-language metadata to be translated:

  1. While creating a metadata definition in the source language, select all target languages (the languages into which content will be translated) at the bottom of the screen. See also: Adding a metadata definition

  2. Apply multi-language metadata to each folder that will contain content to be translated.

    NOTE: You can assign metadata to a parent folder, and let its child folders inherit the definitions.

    To do that:

    1. Go to the folder.
    2. Click View > Language > target language.
    3. Click View > Properties > Edit properties > Metadata tab.
    4. Uncheck Inherit parent configuration (unless you want to inherit from the parent folder).
    5. Check the metadata definition you created in Step 1.
  3. Create the content. To do that:
    1. Go to the folder.
    2. Click View > Language > source language.
    3. Create the content. While doing this, fill out the metadata in the source language.
  4. Export the content for translation. An agency translates it. See Exporting content to XLIFF.
  5. Import the translated content. The metadata is translated along with the content, summaryA short description that supplements a content item's title on a Web page. Content authors compose a summary when creating or editing content. Server controls and widgets can display a content title and summary to attract readers to the full story. Summaries can include images and text formatting., and so on. See Importing translation files.

Enabling multi-language metadata after a definition is created

There are 2 ways to add support for multi-language metadata after a metadata definition is created.

Creating a new metadata definition in the target language

To create a new metadata definition in the target language:

  1. Create the new metadata definition. Be sure to choose the target language. When you enter a name for the new definition, make sure it exactly matches the name of the source language metadata definition.

  2. Make sure that all other fields on the screen (Type, Editable, and so on) match the source language metadata definition.
  3. Ignore the bottom of the screen (circled in the following image).

  4. Apply that metadata definition to each folder that will contain content to be translated. To do that:
    1. Go to the folder.
    2. Click View > Language > target language.
    3. Click View > Properties > Edit properties > Metadata tab.
    4. Uncheck Inherit parent configuration (unless you want to inherit from the parent folder).
    5. Check the metadata definition you created in Step 1.
  5. From now on, if you export content for translation from that folder then import the translated files, the metadata is translated along with the content, summaryA short description that supplements a content item's title on a Web page. Content authors compose a summary when creating or editing content. Server controls and widgets can display a content title and summary to attract readers to the full story. Summaries can include images and text formatting., and so on. See Exporting content to XLIFF, Importing translation files.

Mapping metadata values between source and target languages

In this procedure, you use an .xml file to map metadata definitions in different languages. It assumes that, for a metadata definition that exists in a source language, you want to create a corresponding one in a target language. For example, consider these metadata definitions.

  • ID=102, Language=en-US, Name=Paper form number
  • ID=106, Language=en-ES, Name=Número de papel de la forma

IDs 102 and 106 contain the same information in different languages.

An XML file contains the mapping, which informs the XLIFF export/import process that metadata ID 102 in English corresponds to 106 in Spanish.

Prerequisite 

Locale codes for the source and target languages. See Workarea > Settings > Localization > Languages and Regions.

  1. Go to Settings > Configuration > Metadata Definition.
  2. Select the target language.
  3. Add a new metadata definition. Assign it the same data type and other properties as the original. Note the new ID number.
  4. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 for additional target languages.
  5. Open workarea/xslt/metadataDefinitions.xml.
  6. For each metadata definition, enter a <dd> element within the <dl> element. The <dd> element has the following form.
    <dd title="Name of the metadata definition"> 
	<dfn id="ID" xml:lang="language-country code"/> 
	<dfn id="ID" xml:lang="language-country code"/> : 
</dd>

    For example:

    <dl> 
    <dd title="Paper form number"> 
	<dfn id="102" xml:lang="en-US"/>
	<dfn id="106" xml:lang="es-ES"/> 
    </dd>
</dl>
  7. The XLIFF export/import process accesses the metadataDefinitions.xml file to determine which definitions in the source language correspond to target language definitions. From now on, if you export content for translation from that folder then import the translated files, the metadata is translated along with the content, summaryA short description that supplements a content item's title on a Web page. Content authors compose a summary when creating or editing content. Server controls and widgets can display a content title and summary to attract readers to the full story. Summaries can include images and text formatting., and so on. See Exporting content to XLIFF, Importing translation files.

Creating metadata for content in any language

Use this procedure if your authors create content in separate languages. There is no interaction between the content in the different languages

  1. Create each metadata definition. Be sure to choose the correct language.

  2. Complete the other fields on the screen but ignore the bottom of the screen (circled in the following image).

  3. Apply that metadata definition to each folder that will contain content in that language. To do that:
    1. Go to the folder.
    2. Click View > Language > choose the language.
    3. Click View > Properties > Edit properties > Metadata tab.
    4. Uncheck Inherit parent configuration (unless you want to inherit from the parent folder).
    5. Check the metadata definition you created in Step 1.
  4. When creating content in that folder, authors access the metadata definition created in Step 1 on the Metadata tab.

Creating multi-language content

Use this procedure to create new content in a language other than the default language.

If you already have content in any language and want to create a new content item that contains a translated version of that content, see Translating content.

Prerequisite

  1. Go to the content folder in which you want to create the content.
  2. Choose View > Language and select the language in which you want to create the content.

    You can also view all content in a folder, regardless of language. This menu option makes it easy to find content in a selected language.

    The View Contents of Folder screen displays the language of each content item.

  3. Click Add Content () and create the content as you would any content. See also: Creating new content.
  4. When applying metadata, you can only use metadata definitions created for the selected language. See also: Working with Metadata.

You can set up a separate approval chainA series of users or user groups who must approve content before it can be published. for each edition of a content, and can create collectionA list of Ektron content links for display on a Web page.s, menus, taxonomy categories, and tasks in any supported language.

NOTE: Alternatively, you can designate certain sections of text within a content item to be included or excluded from certain languages. See also: Creating one or more localized paragraphs

Modifying page content based on language selection

If a template’s text should change according to a user’s language selection, use a case statement to provide the language-specific content. Assume you want to create editions of the menu that runs under the header in 3 languages: English, French, and German.

  1. In the template file, declare each menu option a variable. For example: 
    Dim t_search, t_products, t_support, t_news, t_careers, 
  t_calendar, t_home, t_login, t_site_lang, t_contact, 
  t_copyright, calendar_id
  2. Enter case statements that provide the value of each variable in each language. (1031—German; 1036—French.) The following case statement is for the search menu option. 
    Select 
  Case ContentLanguage
  Case "1031" t_search = "Suche"
  Case "1036" t_search = “Recherche"
  Case else t_search = "Search" End Select

When a user visits a page controlled by this template and selects French or German as the site language, the page is refreshed and the translated values appear on the template.

Modifying images based on language selection

Many Web page templates include images that require translation. To set up templates to invoke images in the user-selected language:

  1. Add to the library each image that should change when the language changes. For example, if your company’s tag line is translated into 3 languages, upload the 3 images into the library.

    Include the language in the title of the image. For example, tagline_English, tagline_French.

  2. Create separate content for each language-specific image. Each content block must have a unique ID number.
  3. Insert the appropriate image into the content block for each language. For example, insert the tagline_English image into the English content block.
  4. Insert the content blocks into appropriate templates. For example, insert the English content block into the English template.

Setting up locales

Ektron provides locales for every language and region supported by your Windows server.

You can create a new locale on the Edit Language Details screen by picking a combination of language and region, as defined by the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository. On Windows Vista and later versions, you can use the Microsoft Locale Builder to create custom, supplemental ASP.NET cultures. Custom cultures are helpful if no ASP.NET culture matches either the language or the region; for example, eo-150 (Esperanto in Europe). You also can create custom cultures for new combinations, for example, fr-US (French in U.S.). After you create a locale, Ektron authors can create content, menus, collectionA list of Ektron content links for display on a Web page.s, and so on, in that locale, and site visitors can view content based on it.

Creating a new locale

  1. Go to Workarea > Settings > Localization > Languages and Regions.
  2. Click Add (). The Edit Language Details screen appears. A partial image is shown in the following image.

  • Language. Can display the major languages in every country (via the Show All radio button), or the most common world languages (use the Common radio button). If you are unsure about which languages are used in a country, move to the Region field, select a country, and click the Recommended radio button. Then, go back to the Languages field; you will see all languages spoken in the selected country by percentage.
  • Region. Provides several options for finding the new locale's region or country.
    • If you selected a language above, you can select from a list of countries that use the language. To do that, click Recommended and scroll below the list of multinational regions. Click the country of the locale you are defining.
    • To select from an alphabetical list of all countries, click Show All and scroll below the list of multinational regions.
    • If the language's locale is not tied to a specific country but is connected to a region, select the region from the regions list.
  • Locale. Assign a locale ID to the new language. The locale ID must be unique, but is free-form, so you can customize it. It could be based on a target market, for example, “youth” for English US young adults (for example, youth-US), or “euro” for English in Europe (euro-UK), or even “klingon” (klingon-US). If you select a language, the field is filled in for you. Typically, the suggested value is adequate.
  • Fallback Locale. For every language, you can set a Fallback Locale, a language in which content appears if it is not available in the selected language. If content is not available in the fallback locale, Ektron looks for content in the fallback locale's Fallback Locale. If content in that language is not found, Ektron looks for up to 4 additional fallback locales. At that point, if content is still not found, Ektron tries to display the content in the default language.

    For example, your website's default language is US English. You have some content in Swiss German (de-CH). The fallback language for that is Austrian German (de-AT), and the fallback language for Austrian German is German (de-DE). If the content on a page is not available in Swiss German, Ektron tries to find an Austrian German edition. If it cannot find that, it looks for a German edition. If that is not available, it tries to display an English edition. See also Setting the fallback locale.

    In certain situations, you may want no fallback locale. That is, you want to display nothing if content is not available in the selected language. To accommodate this, None is an option in the Fallback Locale drop-down list.

    NOTE: If you set None as the Fallback Locale for any language, and content is not available in the selected language, nothing appears on the page and no other languages are checked.

  • Language Tag. Assign a language code to the language. This section of the screen contains important information about this field.

    IMPORTANT: Unlike the Locale field, the Language Tag field must conform to the IETF BCP 47(Best Current Practice).

  • Alphabet. Some languages can be written in more than one alphabet. For example, Serbian can be written using the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet.
  • Custom Ext. Choose between 2 strategies when exporting content for translation: machine translation and pseudolocalization.

    Using a MachineTranslation Strategy

    When you export content for translation and apply the MachineTranslation strategy, Ektron translates the content using machine translation then immediately imports it. See also: Using machine translation

    The following is an example of how to implement the strategy. See also: CMS Strategies.

    <objectFactory> 
  <objectStrategies> 
    <add name="MachineTranslation"> 
    <strategies> 
      <add name="MachineTranslationStrategyTemplate" 
        type="Cms.Extensions.Templates
          .MachineTranslationStrategyTemplate, 
          Cms.Extensions.Templates"/>
    </strategies> 
    </add> 
  </objectStrategies> 
  <objectImplementations> </objectImplementations>
</objectFactory>

    Using a pseudoLocalization strategy

    NOTE: For background information, see Pseudolocalization (Wikipedia).

    When you export content for translation and apply the PseudoLocalization strategy, Ektron converts the content to pseudo-language text and the immediately imports it..

    The following is an example of how to implement the strategy.

    See also: CMS Strategies.

    <objectFactory> 
  <objectStrategies> 
    <add name="MachineTranslation"> 
    <strategies> 
      <add name="MachineTranslationStrategyTemplate" 
        type="Cms.Extensions.Templates
          .MachineTranslationStrategyTemplate, 
          Cms.Extensions.Templates"/>
    </strategies> 
    </add> 
  </objectStrategies> 
  <objectImplementations> </objectImplementations>
</objectFactory>
    <objectFactory> 
  <objectStrategies> 
    <add name="PseudoLocalization"> 
    <strategies> 
      <add name="PseudoLocalizationStrategyTemplate" 
        type="Cms.Extensions.Templates
          .PseudoLocalizationStrategyTemplate,
          Cms.Extensions.Templates"/> 
      </strategies> 
      </add> 
    </objectStrategies> 
    <objectImplementations> </objectImplementations> 
</objectFactory>

    Here is an example of how to override the PseudoLocalize method.

    public override void 
  PseudoLocalize(ref string content, PseudoLocalizationEventArgs 
  eventArgs)

    Here are the PseudoLocalizationEventArgs properties.

    LocaleData 
Locale 
LocalizableCmsObjectType 
ObjectType 
long 
ObjectId

    Developers use the PseudoLocalize property to write custom code that programmatically starts the export process. Here is an example: Ektron.Cms.Localization.LocalizationExportJob.PseudoLocalize = true;

    Ektron applies the PseudoLocalization strategy if either of the following conditions is met:

    • The target locale’s language tag contains x-pseudo.
    • The export job’s PseudoLocalize property is true.

    Applying PseudoLocalization strategy to a locale

    You can apply PseudoLocalization Strategy to a locale's language tag in the Workarea. Use the Settings > Localization > Languages and Regions screen's Custom EXT field, as illustrated in the following figure. Programmatically, LocaleData.XmlLang contains x-pseudo.

    Overriding the translate method

    Here is an example of overriding the Translate method.

    public override void 
  Translate(ref string content, MachineTranslationEventArgs 
  eventArgs)

    The MachineTranslationEventArgs have intellisense, but the following is a list of its properties.

    LocaleData SourceLocale
LocaleData TargetLocale
LocalizableCmsObjectType ObjectType
long ObjectId

    Ektron applies the Machine Translation strategy if either of the following conditions is met.

    • The target locale’s language tag contains x-mt
    • The export job’s MachineTranslate property is true

    Developers use the MachineTranslate property to write custom code that programmatically starts the export process. Here is an example: Ektron.Cms.Localization.LocalizationExportJob.MachineTranslate = true;

    Applying machine translation strategy to a locale

    You can apply Machine Translation Strategy to a locale's language tag in the Workarea. Use the Settings > Localization > Languages and Regions screen's Custom EXTfield. Programmatically, LocaleData.XmlLang contains x-mt.

  • ASP.NET Culture. Specifies the region for formatting dates, times, currencies, and so on. This value is assigned to the ASP.NET Culture property. See also: How to: Set the Culture and UI Culture for ASP.NET Web Page Globalization.
  • ASP.NET UICulture. specifies the natural language of resource strings. This value is assigned to the ASP.NET UICulture property. See also: How to: Set the Culture and UI Culture for ASP.NET Web Page Globalization
  • Flag Icon. used in the Workarea as a quick, visual indicator of the locale, it is important for each locale to have a unique flag. Flag files must be 16x16 pixel .gif images. Ektron provides several flags, which are installed to the /siteroot/WorkArea/images/application/flags/ folder. Any flags with elements in common with the locale's language and region appear as choices. If there is no flag next to the locale you are creating (for example fr-017, French in Africa), you can create an image, assign that name to it, and place it in the designated folder. Then return to this screen, select the locale, and select the image.
  • Native Name. the name of the locale in its native natural language. That is, what the people in that locale call their own language and region.
  • English Name. the name of the locale in English.

Setting the fallback locale

  1. Go to Workarea >Settings > Localization > Languages and Regions.
  2. Click Edit ().
  3. Click Rename or Change Fallback Locale () for the language of interest.
  4. Use the pulldown in that language's Fallback Loc column to select a fallback locale.

    NOTE: If you set a language's Fallback Locale to None and the language is part of a fallback chain, if content is not available in that language, the chain terminates there.

  5. Click Save () in the row of the language you are changing.

Translating content

You have the following options for translating content.

Translating content manually

Use this procedure to initialize new foreign language content with content from a source language, then translate the content manually. The copying should facilitate the translation. For example, an editor translates content from French to German. The editor copies the French edition to new content whose language is German. As the editor translates the French edition into German, the French content is deleted. Any images in the content usually would remain, and all formatting (tables, bullets, and so on) is retained.

  1. Go to the View Contents of Folder screen for the content you want to translate. Its status must allow editing (it cannot be submitted or pending).
  2. Choose View > Language and select an original language.
  3. Click the content you want to translate. It appears on the View Content screen.
  4. Use the Add drop-down list in the upper right corner to select a language into which you want to translate the content. The original language content appears.

  5. Translate into the new language then delete the original content. At this point, you can click Translate Content () to have the software translate the content. You can then edit as needed to perfect the translation. When done, click the Paste Content button.

    NOTE: You cannot translate XML Smart Forms using the Translate Content () button.

  6. Translate the Title and summaryA short description that supplements a content item's title on a Web page. Content authors compose a summary when creating or editing content. Server controls and widgets can display a content title and summary to attract readers to the full story. Summaries can include images and text formatting..
  7. To add metadataInformation about a content item, such as its title and language. Some types of metadata are [Searchable.] Can be found by the search. [Meta tag.] Resides in a content’s source code, helping search engines find it. [HTML tag.] Information about content used by a Web browser. [Content tags.] Keywords that can be assigned to content and library items. * Simple Dublin Core. 15 standard fields that cover useful information about content. to content, metadata specifications must have been created for the selected language. See also: Working with Metadata
  8. When you save the content, it is saved as the edition of that content in the selected language.

Using machine translation

Ektron includes a machine translation feature, which is powered by the Google Translation Service. To see a list of supported languages, go to http://translate.google.com/.

NOTE: Machine translation is not supported for all languages in the Language Settings screen. Also, you cannot translate XML Smart Forms using this method.

Like most software-based translation, someone fluent in the new language should verify that the translation is appropriate within the context of the page.

The machine translation feature lets you choose a glossary (that is, a field, industry, or subject area). This helps the software find the best translation for a term or phrase in that field.

Follow these steps to use the machine translation feature.

Prerequisite

Your Ektron administrator has enabled the feature. See also: Enabling machine translation

  1. In the Workarea, open the folder that contains content to be translated.
  2. Choose View > Language and select an original language (that is, the language from which it will be translated).
  3. Click the content you want to translate. Its status must allow editing (that is, its status cannot be submitted or pending). It appears on the View Content screen.
  4. Use the Add drop-down list in the upper right corner to select a new language for the content.

    NOTE: If you do not see the language on the drop-down, you need to enable the language. See also: Determining which languages are available

  5. The original language content appears.
  6. Edit the title if appropriate.
  7. Click Translate Content (). The Translation screen appears.

  8. Select the source (old) and target (new) languages.
  9. If the content should refer to a specific glossary, select one from the drop-down list.
  10. Click Translate. The translation appears.
  11. If the translation looks OK, click Paste Content. The translated content replaces the original content in the editor. Modify as needed.
  12. Translate the Title and Summary.
  13. To add metadata to the content, metadata specifications must have been created for the selected language. See also: Working with Metadata
  14. When you save, the content is saved as the selected language edition of the content.

NOTE: When the View Contents of Folders screen reappears, it is probably set to the source language. In this case, you do not see the new content in the target language. To see it, click View > Language and select All or the target language.

Enabling machine translation

Follow these steps to enable Ektron's machine translation feature.

  1. Using the information on the Web page https://developers.google.com/translate/v2/faq, obtain a Google Translation API key.

    NOTE: The Google Translate API is only available as a paid service.

  2. Open the Ektron siteroot folder\web.config file.
  3. Find the following element: 
    <machineTranslation>
<!-- ex. value="[API_KEY_FROM_GOOGLE],
https://www.googleapis.com/language/translate/v2?key="-->
<add key="GoogleTranslator" value="" />
</machineTranslation>
  4. Insert the API key you obtained in Step 1 into the value attribute.

Exporting content to XLIFF

You can copy content into XLIFFXML Localization Interchange File Format; for exchanging localization data. files that you can submit to a translation agency, or translate the content "in house." When the translation is complete, you import translated content to Ektron.

You can translate these kinds of Ektron information.

Ektron supports versions 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2 of the XLIFF standard. You specify the version you are exporting in the web.config file, using the ek_XliffVersion element. Any listed version can be imported.

Creating one or more localized paragraphs

IMPORTANT: This button is only available in the eWebEdit400 editor.

The Localize Section button () lets you designate paragraphs to localize for the XLIFF translation process. For example, an author creates content in English, and does not want a specific paragraph to be translated into French. So, the author uses the Localize Section feature to exclude that paragraph from the French version of content. When the content is exported, the selected paragraph does not appear in the French XLIFF file.

  1. Open the content with paragraphs that you want to localize.

  2. Select one or more paragraphs. You must select entire paragraphs. You cannot select individual words or sentences within a paragraph. Also, if the content is a bulleted or numbered list, you must select the entire list.
  3. Click Localize Section (). The Localize Section dialog appears.

  4. For each language on the list, Include or Exclude the selected text.
    • If you include one or more languages, all unchecked languages are excluded.
    • If you exclude one or more languages, all unchecked languages are included.
    • If you include some languages and exclude others, all unchecked languages are excluded.
  5. Click OK. From now on, when editing that content, authors see a <localize> box that shows the localized sections that are exported/imported when using the XLIFF process.

On the following sample screen, Dutch and U.S. English are excluded. This means that French, German and Italian are included even though the Include box is not checked.

On the following sample screen, German and Italian are included. This means that Dutch, U.S. English, and French are excluded even though the Exclude box is not checked.

On the following sample screen, Dutch is included and U.S. English is excluded. In this case, because one language is included and another is excluded, German, Italian, and French are excluded even though the Exclude box is not checked.

Editing a localized section

  1. Edit the content that contains the localized section. A localized section looks like a table within the editor.
  2. Place the cursor in the table header, near <Localize>.
  3. Right click and choose Localize Section.
  4. Choose Locale Languages to Include or Exclude.
  5. Click OK.

Removing a localized section

  1. Edit the content that contains the localized section. A localized section looks like a table within the editor.
  2. Place the cursor in the table header, near <Localize>.
  3. Right click and choose Remove Localize Section. The localization information is removed but the text remains.

Importing translation files

The following is an overview of importing translation files.

  1. You select content to translate.
    • a content item
    • a folder—all content in the folder is selected; you may include its subfolders
    • all menus
    • all taxonomies

    Alternatively, select a Translation Package. See also: Creating a multi-language translation package.

  2. Ektron converts the selected content to XLIFF files. (Only content whose state is "Ready for translation" is converted to XLIFF format.) You can prepare files for translation into several languages at once. A separate .xlf file is created for each language. Then, all .xlf files for each language are compressed into one .zip file.
  3. Transmit the .zip file to a translation agency.
  4. The agency translates and returns the files. Alternatively, the files can be translated "in house."
  5. Import the files to Ektron. If the content does not exist in the target language, it is created.

Prerequisite

Only members of the Administrator User Group and those defined in the Manage Members for Role: XLIFF-Admin screen can create or import XLIFF files. See also: Using the roles screens

IMPORTANT: Make sure the files have been translated before you import them.

  1. From the Workarea, choose Settings > Localization > Import Translated Files.
  2. Click Browse and go to the folder that contains the translated files.
  3. Select the files to import.
  4. Click Import Translated XLIFF Files. Ektron creates new or updates existing foreign-language editions of the imported content/menu/taxonomy.
  5. Information about the imported file appears in the history area of the screen. You can click plus signs (+) to see increasing levels of information about imported content.

    For each new edition:

Marking translation statuses

Prerequisite

Member of Administrators group, or assigned to the Translation State Admin or XLIFF Admin role See also: Defining roles

Each Ektron content item has a translation status. Only content marked "ready for translation" is included when you create an .xlf file. Use Mark Translation Status on the View Content screen to mark translation status. See also: Content statuses

A content item's Mark Translation Status button may have any of 3 icons, which indicate the content's status.

  • Ready for translation. Automatically applied when content status changes to Approved. Manually applied when authorized user clicks button and changes status to Ready for Translation.

    NOTE: You may apply this status to unapproved content if it needs translation before the site goes live.

  • Not ready for translation. Automatically applied when content status changes to anything other than Approved. Translation status changes if
    • authorized user clicks button and chooses Ready for Translation
    • content's status changes to Approved
  • Do not translate. Prevents content from being translated. Translation status changes only if authorized user clicks button and chooses Ready for Translation.

If you click Mark Translation Status (), a menu appears that lets you change its status. Note that Export for Translation () appears on the toolbar only if the content's translation status is Ready for Translation.

If you create an .xlf file for a folder, only content whose translation status is ready is included in the file.

NOTE: The Localization Dashboardprovides an overview of translation activity within Ektron.

Applying Translated Metadata to Translated Content

If you follow the guidelines in Creating multi-language metadata, key metadata fields are recognized in the XLIFF process and will be imported/exported.

After you import the translation files, Ektron removes them from the file system.

NOTE: If an error exists in any of the files, the erroneous files are moved into a subdirectory. The directory is created using a timestamp. For example: uploadedFiles\localization\merged\xlf20060208T141841_u1\error\.

Metadata that works with XLIFF export and import

The following metadata field names may be used for translation using the XLIFF export and import process.

  • XliffReferenceSource. Content Selector
  • XliffReference. Content Selector
  • XliffGlossary. Content Selector
  • XliffNote. Meta Data

Creating the .zip file

Prerequisite

Only members of the Administrator User Group or those assigned to the XLIFF-Admin role can create, export, or import XLIFF files. See also: Using the roles screens .

To create one or more .zip files for translation:

  1. Select the content to be exported:
  2. Click Export for Translation (). (On the View Contents of Folder Screen, choose Action > Export for Translation.) The Export for Translation screen appears.

    NOTE: The Include Subfolders field appears only if you click Export for Translation from the View Contents of Folder screen.

  3. To include content in all of a selected folder’s subfolders, check Include Subfolders.
  4. From the Source Language pull-down, select the language of items being translated.
  5. All enabled languages are selected under Target Language. (See also: Determining which languages are available).
  6. To translate the content into all languages, proceed to the next step.

    To translate the content into some languages, uncheck the languages that you do not want. You can uncheck the box in the header row to uncheck all, then only check the ones you want.

  7. Click Create XLIFF Files for Translation.
  8. Ektron creates one .zip file for each language. The .zip file includes an XLIFF file for each selected content item. (If content in a target language was edited more recently than the source language edition, that content is excluded from the .zip file. Also, the content's translation status must be ready. See also: Marking translation statuses)

    The History section of the Export for Translation screen displays the translated files.

    The history lists the .zip file created for each language. The top of the history window displays the most recently exported/imported files. ZIP files are indicated by the WinZip icon (). To the right of the icon are:

    • the source language's flag
    • an arrow indicating the direction of the translation
    • the destination language's flag and name
    • the zip file size
  9. To review items in a zip file, click + next to Extracted. When you do, each content item’s ID number, title, and last edit date appear.
  10. Click the .zip file icon (under Downloadable Zipped XLIFF Files). The File Download window appears. If you want to review the XLIFF files within the .zip file, click Open.
  11. Click Save. The Save As window appears.
  12. Go to the folder where you want to place the zip file and click Save.
  13. Transmit the files to the translation agency.

NOTE: When the translation agency returns XLIFF files, their extension must be .xlf or .xml. Other than that, the file name is not important.

XLIFF

  • item identifier[item ID]_[new language hexadecimal code][2 letter new language code].xlf
    • item identifier options:
    • content: cont
    • form: form
    • menu: s
    • menu item: s
    • taxonomy: t
  • item ID varies, depending on whether the item is content, a form, a menu, or a menu item
    • content: content ID number
    • form: form ID number
    • Menu: menu ID number
    • Menu item: menu ID number

ZIP

  • xlf[timestamp in format yyyymmddThhmmss]_u[user ID] _ [new language hexadecimal code]-[2 letter language code].zip

    The user ID indicates which user performed the export or import.

Creating a multi-language translation package

Use the Multi-language Translation Package to create and control groups of content that require translation. Translation packages contain any type of content managed by Ektron including

For ease of use, you may add content and folders to one or more Translation Packages.

After creating a Translation Package, you use the Export for Translation screen's Select Packages field to export the content for translation. See also: Exporting content to XLIFF.

Only content that’s selected for that package and marked “Ready for Translation” is exported. See also: Marking translation statuses.

Prerequisite

You must be a member of the Administrators group or be assigned to the XLIFF Admin role. See also: Defining roles.

Viewing translation packages

When you first view the Translation Packages screen, you see all packages in the default language. To view existing packages in any (or all) languages, change the language drop-down.

Adding a translation package

  1. Go to Workarea > Settings > Localization > Translation Packages.
  2. Choose a language for this Translation Package using the View: drop-down.
  3. Click Add Translation Package. The Add Translation Package screen appears.
  4. Enter a translation package title and description.
  5. Click Save. TheItems and Properties tabs appear.
  6. Below the tabs, a screen appears. Use toolbar buttons to add items to the Translation Package.

Assigning items to a translation package

  1. Go to Workarea > Settings > Localization > Translation Packages.
  2. Choose a language for this Translation Package in the View: drop-down.

    NOTE: You can add more languages to the package after creating it.

  3. Click a Package Name to view it.
  4. Click Assign Items (). The following image shows an example of the \Content\Company\Careers folder.

  5. Check items to include in this package. Only content in the selected language appears.
  6. Click Update Translation Package.

Assigning folders to a translation package

If you select a folder, only content in that folder that matches the Translation Package's source language is included. For example, you create a Translation Package in English. In that package, you select a folder which has 1 content item in English, 2 in Spanish, and 1 in German. When the package is exported for translation, it includes English content only.

  1. Go to Workarea > Settings > Localization > Translation Packages.
  2. Click on a Package Name to view it.
  3. Choose a language for this Translation Package in View:.
  4. Click Assign Folders (). The following image shows an example of the MainSite\Content\Company\Careers folder.

  5. Check folders to include in this package.

    NOTE: To check subfolders, open the folder tree to show the subfolders then check the top folder. To exclude subfolders, do not open the folder tree or uncheck the specific subfolders.

  6. Click Update Translation Package.

Linking a Photoshop source file to an image for translation

Complex images often contain text that you wish to translate. Because the image is a "flat" non-layered file, it is difficult to make text changes. However, the text may be on a layer within a Photoshop (.psd) file.

  1. Create a Metadata definition called XliffReferenceSource of the type Content Selector.

    NOTE: The key name XliffReferenceSource is a reserved and recognized by the XLIFF import/export process.Adding a metadata definition

  2. Assign XliffReferenceSource metadata to the folder that contains the images.
  3. Add the Photoshop file as an asset in that folder.
  4. Go to the Library and edit the image to which you associate the psd file.
  5. Click the metadata tab and add the Photoshop file to the XliffReferenceSource field.
  6. Click Publish.

Translating the Workarea

By default, the Workarea is in English. Ektron provides US English strings in a text file. Workarea text (that is, screen titles, Workarea menus, messages, alt text for buttons, and so on) is stored in a resource file. Resource files are installed to the siteroot\Workarea\resources directory. Workarea images that include text are stored in the workarea/images/language folder. For example, Workarea\images\french_standard.

Ektron provides a resource files for the following languages. The English resource file is complete, so translate the English file into the desired language. The others are partially complete.

A resource file is not human-readable. To make it so, use Microsoft’s resgen utility, then translate the human-readable, .txt version of the file. The following example shows a portion of it.

add menu title=Add Menu
lbl ad serverip=Domain Controller IP
alt: remove collection items text=Click here to remove items 
	from this collection

Each string has the following components:

  • English description—includes information about where the text appears. For example, btn text appears on a button.
  • an equal sign (=)
  • English text—The text displayed on the screen, for example, a button label, menu item, or mouse-over text.

For each string, translate the text to the right of the equal sign. Then, run the resgen utility on the .txt file again, indicating the translate-to language. This converts the file back to a machine-readable format. Finally, move that file to the appropriate language folder under workarea/images, and enable the new language in the Workarea.

Prerequisites

  • The alphabetical, 4-character identifier of the country/language into which you are translating. See CultureInfo Classfrom the MSDN website.
  • The server that hosts Ektron must have Visual Studio.NET.
  1. Copy the resgen.exe utility from C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.0A\Bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools to the your-web-site\Workarea\resources folder.

    In Visual Studio, the resgen.exe utility is typically located in the <SDK dir>\bin directory, located via HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Windows.

    NOTE: If your computer does not have a resgen.exe file, see the following article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/ccec7sz1%28v=vs.110%29.aspx
    Note that it says "This tool is automatically installed with Visual Studio."

  2. Go to Windows Start button > Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 > Visual Studio Tools > Visual Studio Command Prompt to open a command window.

    If you're using Windows 8 or 2012, go to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft Visual Studio 2010\Visual Studio Tools\Visual Studio Command Prompt.

  3. In the command window, change the directory to the siteroot\Workarea\resources folder. For example, cd C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\CMS400Min\Workarea\resources.
  4. Insert the following text: resgen EKResource.en-US.resources anyfilename.txt
    You can assign any name to the .txt file. A .txt file of resource strings converted to a human-readable format is created in the resources directory.
  5. Open the .txt file.
  6. Replace all single backslashes (\) with a double backslash (\\).
  7. Translate the text following every equal sign (=). Be careful not to change any occurrences of n surrounded by double backslashes (\\n\\).
  8. Save and close the .txt file.
  9. Open the command window (as described in Step 2) and insert the following:
    resgen anyfilename.txt EKResource.two-character country 
  code-two-character language code.resources.

    Replace anyfilename.txt with the file you named in Step 4. In this example, the .txt file is named span_translation.txt. For example, to indicate that the Workarea is being translated into the Spanish/Spain, enter resgen.exe span_translation.txt EKResource.es-ES.resources.
    When the conversion is complete, Writing Resource File ...Done appears in the command window.

  10. The Workarea\resources folder includes several resource files. If one exists for the translate-to language, it is overwritten. If one does not exist, it is created. To follow our example, the EkResource.es-ES.resources file was updated with your changes.
  11. Your website's Workarea\images folder contains text images that need translation. If the country/language into which you are translating has subfolder within Workarea\images, inspect its images to see if they need translation. If the country/language into which you are translating does not have a subfolder within Workarea\images:
    1. Create a new folder whose name is the language code into which you are translating.
    2. Copy the files in the Workarea\images\en folder.
    3. Paste those files to the folder you created in Step 10a.
    4. Review the files in the folder you created in Step 10a. Translate text as needed.
  12. Enable the new language in the Language Settings screen. See Determining which languages are available.
  13. Make the new language the default language in the Configuration Setup screen. See Setting the default language.

Setting the spell checking language for eWebEdit400

NOTE: If you use the default editor, your browser manages the spell checking.

Ektron’s spell checker for eWebEdit400 refers to a standard dictionary of the content’s language. So, for example, if the content is U.S. English, the U.S. English dictionary is referenced.

The spell checker also references a language-specific custom dictionary. Words are added to this list when a user stops at a misspelled word and chooses the Add to Dictionary option.

Both dictionaries reside on the server that hosts Ektron.

The spell checker compares each word against both sources. If a word is in either one, the spell checker moves to the next word. If a word is missing from both sources, the spell check options appear, and the user decides what to do.

Ektron provides the following standard dictionaries.

  • uk-UA. Afrikaans
  • ar-AR. Arabic
  • bg-BG. Bulgarian
  • cs-CZ. Czech
  • da-DK. Danish
  • de-CH. German (Switzerland)]
  • de-DE. German
  • en-GB. English (Great Britain)
  • en-US. English (United States)
  • es-ES. Spanish
  • fr-FR. French
  • he-IL. Hebrew
  • it-IT. Italian
  • nl-NL. Dutch
  • nn-NO. Norwegian (Nynorsk)
  • pl-PL. Polish
  • pt-PT. Portuguese
  • pt-BR. Portuguese (Brazil)
  • ru-RU. Russian
  • sl-SL. Slovenian
  • sv-SE. Swedish
  • uk-UA. Ukrainian

If Ektron does not have a dictionary that matches the content language, it proceeds through these steps in the following order:

  1. If the language begins with en (for example, en-AU), use the en-GB dictionary.

    If it begins with zh, use zh-CHS.

  2. Each language has a default version, indicated by letters before the dash matching the ones after the dash. For example fr-FR. If the default version’s dictionary is available, use it.
  3. Use the first dictionary (alphabetically) that begins with the content language. For example, the content language is es-AR, but its dictionary does not exist. The first dictionary alphabetically beginning with es that is available is es-CO, so use that.
  4. If none of the above is available, use en-US.

Using the localization dashboard

Prerequisite

You must be a member of the Administrators group or assigned to the XLIFFXML Localization Interchange File Format; for exchanging localization data. Admin role. See also: Defining roles

The Localization Dashboard provides an overview of translation activity occurring in Ektron. To access the Localization Dashboard from the Workarea, go to Settings > Localization > Dashboard. The top of the screen lets you choose criteria. The lower section then displays content that meets the criteria. For example, you can find all US English content whose translation status is Ready for Translation, and resides in the /Clients folder. The lower section of the screen also lets you perform tasks on its content, such as print a list or change its Translation Status. See also: Marking translation statuses

The following list explains the fields at the top of the screen. After you enter the selection criteria, click Filter Results to apply the new selections.

IMPORTANT: These criteria have an AND relationship. This means that, if you select several criteria, only content that satisfies all appears in the lower section of the screen.

  • Lang/Dialect. Select the language whose content you want to view. To ignore this field, choose NULL. Alternatively, you can select all content not in the selected language. To do that, check the Does not Include box.
  • Trans Status. Select the translation status of content you want to view. To disregard this criterion, choose (Any). See also: Marking translation statuses
  • Date Created. If desired, enter a range of content creation dates. If you do, only content created within those dates appears below.
  • Last Modified. If desired, enter a range of content modification dates. If you do, only content edited within those dates appears below.
  • ContentID. To see a particular content item, enter its ID number.
  • Folder. If desired, select a folder whose content you want to view.
  • Author. If desired, select the person who last edited the content you want to view.
  • Title. If you know one or more words in the title of content that you want to view, enter them. You may enter one partial word and find all content whose title includes it.

Viewing content on the localization dashboard

When you open the Localization Dashboard, the lower section displays all content in the Default Application Language.

NOTE: The pagination of the content list is controlled by the <add key="ek_PageSize"> element in your siteroot/web.config file.

On the lower section, you can:

Editing the content's export languages

As described in Creating the .zip file, when exporting content for translation, you select one or more target languages. You can add, edit, or remove target languages for content in the lower section of the Localization Dashboard using Action menu options.

The actions associated with the menu options are performed the next time the Create XLIFF Files for Translation button is clicked:

  • Set Locales. View and modify locales into which selected content will be exported.
  • Add Locales. Add locales into which selected content will be exported.
  • Remove Locales. Remove locales into which selected content will be exported.

To change the target language assigned to content in the lower section of the Localization Dashboard:

  1. Check the box next to each content item that you want to modify. To check all items, check the box in the header row.
  2. Click Action > menu option. For example, Action > Set Locales.
  3. Select desired locales and click Save.

Changing the content's translation status

To learn about Translation Status, see Marking translation statuses.

  1. Check the box next to each content item that you want to modify. To check all items, enable the check box in the header row.
  2. Click Action > Set Translation Status.
  3. Select the appropriate Translation Status and click Save.

Estimating the content's word count

  1. Enable the checkbox associated with one or more pieces of content.
  2. Choose Action > Estimate Word Count. The Estimated Word Count screen appears.
  3. Click Save. The screen is dismissed. (Note that the word count is not saved.)

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