Translating to other Languages

The ability to translate Apps on your Site facilitates greater use cases, meaning no corner of your business, no matter the region has to forego the benefits Softools' platform has to offer. Currently 15 of the most used languages globally are supported, with the process of using these having been designed with ease in mind.

Configuring New Translations

Before you can begin translating, your site has to have the desired translation language(s) enabled - Please contact your Softools sponsor for this, they will swiftly and gladly arrange such for you. Once the additional language(s) have been enabled for your site you can begin configuring your Translations in the designated area in AppStudio.

To access 'Translations' as seen above you first need to have selected the App you wish to Translate from your AppStudio homepage. Then upon clicking 'Translations' you will be presented with a List of all of the App's Fields subject to the following column headings:

• Identifier - The unique system reference for a Field, these will always remain in the Site's default language.
• Type - The sort of text that is due to be translated e.g. a Field Label, Chart Label, Template Title etc...
• Language - The language that the text has been translated into.
• Text - The original wording that has been translated.
• Translation - The original wording, now in the translation Language.

In this example you can see that French is the selected translation language in the top right but you can use this drop-down list to choose any one of your enabled Site languages. After making your language selection it is recommended that you use Softools' 'Auto Translate' feature in order to save yourself masses of time, otherwise spent manually entering all Field Text translations. - This feature is found by clicking the down-arrow next to the 'Utilities' button in the bottom left of the screen.

Note: Auto Translate is designed to only be used when you are adding a new translation language for an App. Once the 'Auto Translate' process has been undertaken for the first (and only) time per language, per App, any Fields created after that or labels changed will be automatically translated / updated by the system. 

When 'Auto Translate' is complete you will notice the Translation column has become populated with translations like below:

Editing Translations

If you wish to customise system generated translations Softools offers two methods to make this quick and simple:

1. Manual override
2. Export / Import

Manual Override

This is the easiest method to alter the system generated transitions and is best used in cases where you don't need to alter lots of translations at once. To manual override you must first click on the desired translation on the list after which you will find the manual entry box at the bottom.

Tip: You must remember to hit 'Save' in order for the changes to be registered.

Export / Import

Exporting and Importing is not quite as straightforward as using the Manual Override but will ultimately still make life easier for those cases where you need to edit many system generated translations simultaneously.

Naturally you must first Export the List of translations before you can then edit them to re-import. To do this, use the down arrow next to the 'Utilities' button in the bottom left and select Export.

Once clicked the .csv file format Export will become available for download via the 'Export Summaries' App in your Site Settings Area. To see how to access this please refer here.

When downloaded and opened you can change the translations of the Original Text by editing their values as desired under the 'Translation Value' column header. The last step is to then save the changes you made to the file and re-import it via the 'Import' option found under the 'Utilities' menu.

Note: If you are going to use this method please be careful not to change anything other than just the translation values, otherwise the re-import will fail.