TRANSLATION WORKFLOW

Umbraco's translation features are not unlike those in many other CMSs' implementations. Umbraco employs an industry standard workflow that allows translation agencies to be part of the mix without having full access to the content or permission to publish anything to the public site. Umbraco generates a translation file in XML format that the translator user logs in to pick up. The translator user edits the file or uses an industry standard translation program to parse the XML file, makes the necessary translations, saves the file, and finally uploads the translated content back to Umbraco.

To start a Workflow, you need to register a user (as was covered in Chapter 2, in the section “Umbraco Building Blocks”), give him access to the Translation section, and tell Umbraco where he should start in the content tree (in this case the start node is Runway Website (se). The complete user details should look like those shown in Figure 7-11.

A translation user has access to a restricted version of the Umbraco backoffice. In the example in the “Working with Hostnames” section, you set the start node for the translation user, but in a translation workflow that is a fruitless exercise because the user will only see the Translation section when he logs in. Of course, the user could have access to both the Content and Translation sections, in which case the restricted content access still applies.

FIGURE 7-11

Sending content to translation is a breeze after you've added at least one translation user to the backoffice. The following steps take you through the process:

1. While logged in as an administrator (or editor), navigate to the Content section in Umbraco.
2. Expand the Runway Website (se) node and right-click the Installing runway modules node.
3. Click the Send To Translation menu item, as shown in Figure 7-12.
4. In the resulting dialog, select the translation user to whom you want to send this request (in this example only one is available and selected by default).
5. Select which language to translate the content to. This value is also preselected because you are in the Swedish version of the site already.

   FIGURE 7-12

   

6. Optionally, you can specify whether or not to include all subpages and whether you want to add a comment, as shown in Figure 7-13.

   FIGURE 7-13

   

7. Close the confirmation dialog by clicking the Close this window link.

This part of the workflow is now done. You can repeat the process for any and all sections of the website that you want translated. Alternatively, you can send the entire site for translation by starting at the Homepage node. This gives you the flexibility to use multiple translators for individual sections of the site. From this point on, the translator process takes over.

1. If you are logged in with your administrator role, log out of Umbraco before proceeding.
2. Log in to Umbraco using the Translator account that you set up in the “Setting Up Multiple Sites” section earlier in this chapter. All you should see is the translation section with two nodes: “Tasks assigned to you” and “Tasks created by you.”
3. Expand the Tasks assigned to you node to reveal all the outstanding translations that have been assigned. Similarly, click the node itself to list the outstanding translations in more detail, as shown in Figure 7-14.

   FIGURE 7-14

   

4. Click the Translation Details of the Installing runway modules content node to see the details of the content that needs translation. In this case, two fields need translation: Page Title and Body Text. Also, notice how the comment that you filled in earlier shows up for the translator to receive special instructions (see Figure 7-15).
5. Download the XML translation file by clicking the Download link next to the Download xml option. This prompts you to save the file on your local hard drive.
6. Locate the saved XML file and open it. For the purposes of this book, you can edit the content directly in the XML file. As mentioned in this section's introduction, the typical scenario is such that a translator user would import the XML into a translation parsing program and perform the actual translation in there.
7. In the XML file, update nodeName attributes to Installation av Runway moduler, as shown in Figure 7-16.

   FIGURE 7-15

   

   FIGURE 7-16

   

8. Save the file to persist the changes you made.
9. Go back to the Umbraco backoffice and log in using the Translator account, unless you are still logged in.
10. Click the Tasks assigned to you node and locate the Upload translation xml section in the right-hand pane, as shown in Figure 7-17.

    FIGURE 7-17

    

11. Click the Browse button to locate the saved XML file on your local hard drive, as shown in Figure 7-18.

    FIGURE 7-18

    

12. Click the Upload button to submit the translation for the given page; in this case, the Installing runway modules translation.

Umbraco processes the translation and presents you with a confirmation that the page has been updated and saved. In addition, you get the opportunity to preview the page here in the context of the site, as shown in Figure 7-19. Also, the page that was just translated no longer appears in the tasks assigned to you.

FIGURE 7-19

Now that the translation is done, the ball is back in the original creator's court. The next step in the workflow is to review the translation and publish the changes. To do these tasks, follow these steps:

1. Log out of the Umbraco backoffice and log in using your administrator account.

   As shown in Figure 7-20, the page that was just translated is marked as having been changed but not published, indicated by the orange asterisk next to the page name.

   FIGURE 7-20

   

2. After reviewing the changes, click the Save & Publish icon to make the changes viewable on the public website.

That is the Umbraco translation workflow in detail. Naturally, this process is repeatable for any number of pages or any size website.