Language

FootPrints provides a number of system language options.  You can create your own language directory and translate FootPrints into your language of choice for localization.  No programming is required; only plain text files need to be translated.  In addition, you can use this feature to change only some of the embedded text in the FootPrints pages without translating the whole program.  For example, it can be used to change the title of the built-in field Description to Notes in every page in which that field appears.

Choose a Default Language for the System

A default language can be set for the entire system.  The language chosen here is used for Projects and users that have not chosen a preferred language.  This applies to all of the text that appears in FootPrints pages.  By default, FootPrints is shipped with American English as the default language.  FootPrints includes French, German, Spanish (Castilian), and Portuguese (Brazilian) language packs as part of the basic installation.

Choose Data Encoding

Use the radio button to choose whether to use UTF-8 or the default local encoding. This applies to both the program text and the data.  UTF-8 includes all characters from every language.  Using UTF-8, you can add data from several different languages to the same FootPrints and it all should display properly.

Note

The local encoding option is better for upgrades to foreign-language versions, since the existing data is stored in the local encoding.  Therefore, if your default language is English, but you are dynamically linking to data that may contain foreign language characters, use the local encoding option.

For English and Chinese versions UTF-8 is the default. For other languages, the local encoding is the default.

Add a New Language

To change text embedded in the program:

1. On the server where FootPrints is installed, find the C:\FootPrints\cgi\LANGUAGE directory. By default, there is a sub-directory named ENGLISH. This is where the default language files are kept.
2. Make a new sub-folder in the LANGUAGE directory and give it your name of choice, e.g., Francais or WidgetCo.

Note

It is recommended that you use only ASCII characters in the name of the folder, i.e., Francais rather than Français.  It is also recommended that you not use spaces or special characters in the folder name, i.e., WidgetCo rather than Widget’s Version.

3. Copy all the files from the ENGLISH directory to the new sub-folder.

Note

Do not edit the original files in the English directory.  Only edit the files in the copied folder.

4. There will be over 200 files in the new language sub-folder.  There is a file for each FootPrints program or page.  Some contain only a few lines of text, while some contain many lines.  To translate FootPrints into another language, you must edit the files in the new sub-folder.  You can translate all of the text in all files into another language or change only the text that you want to replace in the FootPrints interface.  Tips on translation are found below.  After the translation is complete, the new language directory is available as a language choice. 
5. To make the language the system default, choose that name from the drop-down on the Administration | System | Appearance | Language page and click GO.

Translation Tips

1. Each language sub-folder created is displayed as a new language option for the system, for each Project, as for individual users on the My Preferences page (Agents and administrators only).

To help understand the context of the strings in the text files as you translate, we recommend the following:

• Log into FootPrints as yourself, leaving English as your default language.
• Open a second window and log into FootPrints as a different user.  Select the new language or sub-folder from the My Preferences page for this user.
• As you translate or change the text in a text file (saving the file as you go along), you can refer to each user’s window to see the effect for a particular screen.  You may have to refresh the window to see the changes.

The names of the files give an indication of the page to which they refer.  For example, the MRABAdmin_Page.txt file contains the text for the MRABAdmin_Page.pl program file.  This program in turn generates the Address Book administration page.  Please contact Numara Software or your local distributor if you have trouble finding the corresponding file for a particular FootPrints page.

2. To make it easier to find the corresponding text in a screen, you can add the following line to the C:\FootPrints\cgi\MRlocalDefs file (edit it with WordPad) for a particular user:

$SHOW_LANGUAGE_LABELS{'username'} = 1

where username is the name of the one of the users you are logging in with as you translate to check your work.  This causes all displayed text to include tags with the name of the corresponding string in the interface.  Remember to remove the line from the MRlocalDefs file when you are finished.

3. Each text file contains one line for each text string.  For example, here are the contents of the MRABAdmin_Page.txt file:

$STR_MRABAdmin_Page_PageHeader_0="Address Book Options";

$STR_MRABAdmin_Page_1 ='Add Fields';

$STR_MRABAdmin_Page_2 ='Edit/Delete Fields';

$STR_MRABAdmin_Page_3 ='Edit Options';

$STR_MRABAdmin_Page_4 ='Load External Data';

$STR_MRABAdmin_Page_5 ='Edit Fields';

# 2/26/01 - Language frozen

# Don't add or edit anything above this comment

# Put all changes below.

$STR_MRABAdmin_Page_6 ='Export Data';

1; ## Always keep this as the last line!!!

4. Each line that begins with a string name ($STR_) contains a text string that can be translated.  The actual text to be translated is contained within the quotes after the = sign.  Some text strings are contained in single quotes and others in double quotes.  Both can be edited.  For example, in the line:

$STR_MRABAdmin_Page_PageHeader_0="Address Book Options";

The words:

Address Book Options

can be edited.

In the line:

$STR_MRABAdmin_Page_1 ='Add Fields';

The words:

Add Fields

can be edited.

Warning

Do not change or remove the string name (e.g., $STR_MRABAdmin_Page_1), the equal sign (=), the quotation marks, or the semi-colon (;) at the end of each line.  All of these are necessary for the screens to display properly.

5. Sometimes a variable name used by FootPrints is found within the quotes.  For example, in the MRhomepage.txt file there is a line:

$STR_MRhomepage_24="Search $fp_names by:";

6. The $fp_names variable should not be edited, but the words surrounding it can be.  Variables are used to stand in for a word that is already configurable by the administrator.  In this case, $fp_namesstands for the plural of the name chosen for the FootPrints records, e.g., Tickets or Issues.  An acceptable edit of this string would be:

$STR_MRhomepage_24="Find $fp_names by:";

7. Any lines preceded by a # are comments and should not be edited.  They are there for the reference of the development team and sometimes for the administrator.

8. When a new upgrade of FootPrints is available, some new text strings may be added to one or more of the text files in the Language directory.  These new lines, which are always commented, can be copied from the latest ENGLISH directory and translated as well.  Old strings are never altered, so you do not have to do the same work again.

9. The labels of Project and Address Book fields can also be translated for different languages. Refer to Language of Project and Address Book Fields in the chapter on Project Administration.

Translate Help Files

In addition to the FootPrints pages, the Help files can also be translated.  This feature can be used to translate the Help files into another language, or to customize your Help files.

To translate Help files:

1. You must first add a new language for the program text as described above.
2. The help directory is located under C:\FootPrints\html\.
3. Make a new sub-folder with the same name as your new C:\FootPrints\cgi\LANGUAGE directory.
4. Copy everything else in the directory into your new directory.  For example: To translate the Help into French,  create a C:\FootPrints\html\help\FRENCH directory and copy the files from C:\FootPrints\html\help to this directory.
5. Now you can edit the help files in your new directory to change what is displayed for that language.

NOTE

FootPrints Help is generated using Flare by Madcap Software. The FootPrintsHelp subdirectory of the C:\FootPrints\html\help folder contains all of the help files in HTML format.  You can translate them using an XML editor, or contact Numara Software for the Flare source project to translate the help directly in Flare. Numara Softwaree has translated the User Guide into French, German, Spanish (Castilian), and Portuguese (Brazilian). These translated documents can be obtained through your sales representative.

Language Updates

The FootPrints language translation feature allows the administrator to translate all of the text in the FootPrints pages to another language or to make small changes to that text, with no programming. Additional messages are added to each subsequent release of FootPrints that must be translated. These are added to the bottom of the language text files. The C:\FootPrints\CGI\Language\70_to_75.txt file includes all of the new text strings for each text file. Use the same technique described above to translate the new messages.

If you have previously translated FootPrints 7.0, you only need to translate the new messages for 7.5 or higher.

To do this:

1. Refer to the C:\FootPrints\CGI\Language\60c_to_65.txt file in a 6.5 installation.
2. Refer to the C:\FootPrints\CGI\Language\66_to_70.txt file in a 7.0 installation.
3. In your FootPrints 7.5 SPANISH directory, for each file, cut and paste the new strings for that file to the bottom of the file.
4. Translate the new strings.
5. Continue for each file that contains new strings.
6. To find out if there are new strings for a subrelease (such as 7.5a), run the diffLanguage Perl script in the footprints\cgi\LANGUAGE directory from the command line (must be called with the Perl interpreter).