Working in Translation Designer

Entering Translations

The working area of Translation Designer consists of four columns of data:Base Long Name, Tgt Long Name (target long name), Base Short Name, and Tgt Short Name(target short name).

As the column names imply, the two base language columns display the base language labels for the definitions in the grid. To translate the labels, type the translation into the Tgt Long Name and Tgt Short Name fields.

The grid incorporates standard text editing functionality. Cut, Copy, and Paste operations are available under the Edit menu. To force a line break within a label (so that the text wraps on the page), press CTRL+ENTER.

The first time that you translate a particular field label, the same translation is entered into any other occurrence of that field in the current grid. This ensures consistency and saves time.

The grid automatically limits the length of the text you enter based on the maximum length of the fields. When you reach the maximum length, you cannot add any more characters.

As with any Application Designer definition, changes are not permanent until you save them.

Note:

To save related language data, you must have values in all fields. You cannot partially translate a single PeopleTools definition. For example, if you translate the long name but not the short name for a field, the short name defaults to the base language short name, and this value is saved in the related language table. Similarly, if you translate some but not all translate values for a particular field, any untranslated values pick up the base language text, which is then saved to the related language table.

Navigating Translation Designer

Click to move to a cell or node in Translation Designer, or use the standard Microsoft Windows keyboard shortcuts:

Press TAB or ENTER to move to the right; press SHIFT+TAB to move to the left.
Use any of the arrow keys to move from cell to cell.

For example, the UP ARROW key moves you to the cell above the current cell.
To move from the text cells to the tree, press the LEFT ARROW key.
To move from the hierarchical tree to the text cells, press TAB.

You can use the RIGHT ARROW key only when there are text cells in the same row—that is, if the current node is a translatable definition.
Use the UP ARROW and DOWN ARROW keys to move around in the hierarchical tree—for example, from a field to an adjacent field or to a page.

To move to a lower level, first press TAB to move into the main Translation Designer. Then move up or down to the desired node. Then use the LEFT ARROW key to move back into the tree.
If there are several pages in your project, scroll directly to the node for a particular page by right-clicking that page in the project workspace and from the menu select Translate and choose Translate Page Definitions from the popup menu.

Searching and Replacing

To search for a specific word within a single column:

Place the cursor anywhere in that column, and select Edit, Find and Replace In Current Column.

To search a column you cannot edit, from the Edit menu choose Find in Current Column.
The Find and Replace dialog boxes provide standard search and replace functionality, including the Find Next, Replace, and Replace All buttons. In either dialog box, select the Match case check box if you want to enable case-sensitive searching.
The Find option provides enables you to search up or down the column.

When you reach the top or the bottom of the column, the search does not cycle back through the column. Therefore, if you want to search the entire column, ensure that you’re in the top row when you press Find Next.
The Replace function always searches down the column.

If you want to replace all occurrences in the column, ensure that you’re in the top row when you press Replace.

Using Application Designer Functionality

Because Translation Designer is integrated into the Application Designer, you can use all standard Application Designer features while Translation Designer is open. Some features that are particularly useful during translations are:

Using the Find Definition References option to research where in the system a particular definition is used. To use this option, from the Edit menu select Find Definition References.
Opening a translated page in order to realign translated definitions.
Opening definitions to see the properties.

Remember, as long as you’re logged on using a non-base language, modifying labels in the definition updates the related language tables, not the base language tables.

There are several ways to open a definition:

Use standard Application Designer functionality to open the definition from the project window.
From the File menu, select Open.
Double-click or right-click the definition within Translation Designer and select View Definition from the popup menu that appears.

When you have selected page text that is not associated with a field definition, the page itself opens.

If there is a version of the page for the user’s language preference, that version appears; if not, the base language page appears.

Note:

Security controls access to different Application Designer definitions. If you cannot open a particular type of definition from within Translation Designer, you may not have the necessary level of access.

See Security Administration.

Integrating with Other Applications

Because Translation Designer emulates a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, you can use the standard Windows copy and paste tools to copy translations from Translation Designer into Excel or another Windows application. This is useful when running spell check against your translations or when saving your translations in a spreadsheet for offline review.

To copy the entire contents of the currently open Translation Designer into the clipboard:

Select the entire grid.

From the Edit menu choose Select All or click in the top left cell of the grid border.
From the Edit menu select Copy.

Note:

With Translation Designer, you can copy an entire grid to the clipboard, but you can paste only individual field values back into the grid. You cannot paste the entire grid into Translation Designer after reviewing it in another application.