Summary of the Translation Process

In summary, to produce an application that runs in more than one language:

  1. Define the language

    Add the language to the language table as described in Adding a Language. Select the language preferences as described in Selecting the Language Preferences

  2. Add the maps in the new language

    Export the maps in the Map Editor's 'Translator format' to a text file, translate them into another language using a word processor of your choice, change the value of the #LANGUAGE directive in the file from lang_not_set to <n> to define the language to be updated and use the Map Posting facility to post the maps back to the application database. These steps are described in Extracting Maps for Translation, Translating Extracted Maps and Posting Maps to a New Language

    When posting translator-format files, most of the map properties and fields are forced to match those of the base language maps. The only attributes of fields which can change are their positions and mnemonics, and for local fields their widths. All such differences are, however, written to an error log which you can examine to ensure that no accidental changes have occurred

  3. Select the collate sequence for key fields

    Define the sequence in which the characters are sorted in the user national language, for example, A, Á, B .. Z. This option is described in Specifying Collate Characteristics of Key Fields. You only need to do this if you have defined one or more U type or M-type (upper case or mixed case) character key fields

For many applications, all that is required is to add the new language, define the language preferences and translate the maps. This is an example screen in two languages from the example Sales Order database:

                                   CUSTOMER UPDATE

Customer No.           4  Name       Russell J

Address             20 Spitfire Drive
                          Freshbream
                          Swindon

Credit     Yes  Credit  Limit   200.00         Balance      218.75

Sales Region    SWE       South West England

This is the corresponding screen translated to a new language:

                                 KUNDE INFORMATION

Kunde Nummer        61  Name       Joachim Ziegler

Anschrift            Herrstrasse 21
                          Staaken
                          Berlin

Kredit     Ja   Kreditlimite   1000.00         Konto      50.00
                                                               Stand
Verkaufsregion    BER       Berlin