Setting Up a Multilingual Web Site
Ektron CMS400.NET supports multilingual content. This section lists steps to follow when setting up such a site.
See Also: Creating Web Pages that Support Several Languages
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For details, see |
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1. In web.config, make sure multilingual support is enabled. |
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2. 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 CMS400.NET and selected a default language on the Database Upgrade Utility, be sure that default language matches the one in web.config. |
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3. Enable languages your site will support. |
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4. Add language selection function to templates. |
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5. Create a metadata definition for each supported language. |
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6. Create or translate content. |
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7. Set up approval chains for new content. |
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8. Set up multilingual collections. |
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9. Set up multilingual menus. |
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10. Set up multilingual taxonomies. |
Multi-Language Support for Taxonomies |
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11. Modify text on templates. |
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12. Translate graphics. |
Creating Web Pages that Support Several Languages
When thinking about setting up your Web site to support content in multiple languages, consider these three actions.
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For more information, see |
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Create language-specific content, menus, collections |
Working with Collections in a Multi-Language System Working with Menus in a Multi-Language System After you create these items, have the page invoke that item dynamically. When Ektron CMS400.NET receives a request to display an item that includes a language and item id number, it returns the language-specific edition. To learn about letting the user select a language from a Web page, see Viewing Your Site in Another Language. |
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Adjust template content to user language |
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Translate text in images |
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. A good example of this is the template used on the RC international sample site (Illustrated below).
Assume you want to create editions of the menu that runs across the header (Home, Products, etc.) in three languages:
English
French
German
To do so, follow these steps.
Note: This procedure uses the header.asp file delivered with the RC international sample site as an example.
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 is the decimal code for German, 1036 for French.) The following illustrates how to do this 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
Now, 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 also include images that require translation. You can set up templates to invoke images in the user-selected language by following these steps.
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 three languages, upload the three images into the library.
It‘s a good idea to include the language in the title of the image. For example, tagline_English, tagline_French.
2. Create a separate content block for each language-specific image. Each content block must have a unique ID number.
3. Insert the appropriate image into a content block for each language. For example, insert the tagline_English image into the English content block.
4. Insert the content blocks into the appropriate templates. For example, insert the English content block into the English template.
