Translation of literals, XML-templates and other language specific texts into other languages is supported as part of the standard development support functions of TradeDesign and additional tools like GENLIL, GENXLF etc.
The basic language, normally English, is the base for all other languages. Thus, all translations should be from the basic language to the target.
As the volume of the needed translation is huge, we want to use automated translation tools to automatically translate big parts without bigger manual effort. All those translations are intended for directly import into a work environment and checkin into the product sources with only technical QA and are flagged as automatically translated by setting the issuing user-id to ‘XLIFF’ or in case the integrated editor of the external tool is used to adjust and confirm the translations set the user-id to ‘APPROVED’.
The imported translations get as modification date the date of the export of the original literals to make sure that any change of base language literals checked in after export will automatically flag the translation as outdated.
The result of the automatic translation shall be used by native speaker. In case they identify wrong translations, those wrong translations shall be fixed directly in the sources by those who identified the error without passing the needed changes to others. This is intended as iterative process and not as a QA element with the need to check everything.
As transport medium for exchanging texts with external systems the XLIFF 2.0 format has be selected, as this format is accepted by multiple translation solutions. The specs can be found at https://docs.oasis-open.org/xliff/xliff-core/v2.0/os/xliff-core-v2.0-os.pdf.
For most of the different elements TradeDesign holds a timestamp when the text was last changed and a user id issuing that change.
Based on the modification date, TradeDesign allows to determine whether a translated text needs a new translation or at least an affirmation of a still correct translation, when the base version was changed later than the translated version.
To be able to identify reliable translations, which shall not be overwritten by automatic translations, we use a list of reliable user-ids per target language. As TradeDesign automatically registers the current user id as issuing translator of any changed literal, the changes issued by a reliable user are automatically flagged as reliable translation.
The tools to handle texts are using a list of reliable user ids as identification of texts which are reliable, unless they are outdated compared to the base language. Reliable translated text might be used to load the translation memory of the automated translation. When importing translations reliable translated text should not be overwritten.
As any change to texts in the base language creates the need to translate to many languages it is important to change base language texts only when required. The timestamp of the base language text should only be changed when real changes are applied to the text.
As we introduce the automatic translation and the concept of reliable translators now there can be a start date defined as of which the list of reliable translators is valid. For any literal changed before that start date it is assumed that it is a correct translation independent of the user-id assigned to the literal.
The list of reliable user-ids and the start date of validity can be maintained on the settings panel of the GENXLF transaction per target language.
To check for technical and systematic issues, the generic checking tool GENLIL shall be used to search for any technical issues. In case in future new systematic issues are detected, GENLIL shall be enhanced to search for those new issues. This tool shall be used for regular check-ups of the texts used in the TradeDesign sources.
Tool to export and import texts into an XLIFF file, which is used by external translation tools. The intended cycle is to export all reliable translations as feed to the translation memory of the automatic translation. Then either all or all newly changed texts are exported for the automated translation and the result is imported again.
When importing translations from an XLIFF file, those translations might be imported as automated translations or as confirmed translations. In the first case the user-id assigned to the imported literals is “XLIFF”. Filenames holding the word “confirmed” as part of the filename are automatically imported as confirmed translations and the user-id assigned to those literals is “APPROVED”.
The TradeDesign development platform allows to use the application with a directly integrated translation editor to adjust texts on the spot in the design mode of TradeDesign. Changes applied here need to be checked in by a second person. The user who did the change of the literal is recorded together with the modification date as user-id and timestamp of the affected literals in the sources.
Tool to selectively export and import context help texts from / into a database. Might be replaced by handling via SYSUPD. This tool is listed here just for completion purpose. It is not part of the translation process.
GENXLT - Translation Workbench
Tool to use the TradeDesign external translation editor, which is not intended to be used any longer.