Can our translators easily localize "Home" text in Breadcrumbs?

[Jared Hess]

Our testers noticed this problem in the breadcrumbs in a help generated from a localized RH project:

Notice that the "Home" text in the breadcrumbs is always in English. I hoped if I specified the non-English language in the RH's project settings, it would automatically localize these,  but this doesn't happen. Is there a way to expose these strings, so that our translators can localize "Home" into the equivalent non-English text? I know you can change the breadcrumb format and type in new text that way, but our translators don't have RH and so can't access it that way. Is there a text file somewhere that contains these strings?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

That verbage is in the .lng file - you can get at it via the Project settings > Language tab IIRC.

[Jared Hess]

Hmm. I already looked in the LNG file and didn't see "Home" listed at all. I'll look again.

[Jared Hess]

Nope. The closes thing I see in the LNG file that deals with breadcrumbs is this guy. But I see nothing about the "Home" text. But maybe I'm looking for something that isn't named "Home"?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

D'oh! My mistake - it's in the SSL recipe when you turn them on - you're presented with a little dialog for formatting them. Just type over-top of the "Home" verbage.

[Jared Hess]

I know. That's my point. I know I can do that, but our translators don't have RH.

So it sounds like once we get them back from localization, I'll have to manually type "Home" in the respective non-English language for all sixteen of our supported languages? Uggg.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I must be missing something since I don’t do any localization at all – what are you sending & receiving from them if not the RH project files?

What about doing a big FAR on the output folder to find “Home” in there?

[Jared Hess]

I am sending our translators the RH project files, but if the only way to get the localized string is to type this text via the RH application, our translators have no way of getting to it, since, as I've stated, they don't have RH. So, it sounds like this will need to be a post process step when I build the help files after getting the content back from our localization team. I'll have to find the translation of "Home" for all the different languages and manually type them into the single source layout for each project prior to building. I can certainly do that, but it's an extra manual step I'm hoping to avoid.

A Find and Replace on the output folder is still going to be a manual step.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Hmm...all I’ve ever read about translation agencies says that if you send them RH project files, then they have a copy of RH to work with them. Same with FrameMaker translators AFAIK.

[Peter Grainge]

@Jeff Trust me. You have to have Rh installed to amend Home or you have to amend the output. The string for Home is nowhere in the source files, it is only in the layout used to generate the output.

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[Jared Hess]

Sounds like it's a bug that this string is not in the LNG file. If it were, that'd be an easy solution to this.

[Peter Grainge]

Clearly a fix is needed but I don't think that is it. Surely you would then have a string for the whole project rather than a string per layout?

When you get the translated files back, what is your workflow then? I have one idea but it depends on your answer.

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[Jared Hess]

I envision Adobe could use the LNG file to have some default strings for the default breadcrumbs Home text (Home, Top, Tip... whatever) in that language file. Then if any of those defaults were used in any layout, the language string would automatically be pulled in when that language was set in the project.

Anyway, here's our workflow:

Our localization department returns to us any RH project files with exposed text in them that require some sort of translation. Currently these:

• topic files: .htm,
• toc files: .hhc
• index files: .hhk
• snippet files: .hts
• master page files (if they have translatable text): .htt
• Javascript files (if they have translatable text): .js
• Glossary files: .glo

We then take the English RH project that we had sent to them, and we use that as a base and then copy the localized files ontop of it.

We open up the project in RH, change the project's language to the target language.

Do any post processing steps/fixes

Generate the desired output

Test, Fix, and Regenerate as needed

[Peter Grainge]

Could you project not have a layout for English, French, German etc so that when you copy the files in, you then generate with the appropriate layout?

It's a one off setup and you would create them by using Duplicate. Then you just amend Home once and set a different output folder for each language. Once done, that's it.

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@petergrainge

[Jared Hess]

Hi Peter. Maybe, but I'm not sure I understand. Can you give an example?

[Peter Grainge]

You have a project that is effectively a template, you copy all the French files back into a copy and all the German files back into another copy and so on, correct?

In that template you currently have one layout. Rename that WebHelp English. Now duplicate it and name the copy WebHelp French. After duplicating it, open the layout and change Home to Maison and change the output folder to wherever you want the French help. Repeat for all other languages.

Your template will then have say five WebHelp layouts and when you drop the files for any one language, you use the appropriate WebHelp layout.

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[Jared Hess]

Okay thanks for your help Peter.    

[Jared Hess]

I just wanted to share a workaround I figured out that allows me to expose the "Home" text stored in the breadcrumbs to localization and to formatting. I believe the solution also works around a bug that's in RH version 9 where you can't modify the breadcrumb formatting when it's done from within the single source layouts and make the changes stick in a .chm output.

Basically, what I have to do is edit the .htt file's header to use breadcrumbs, instead of using the option inside of the single source layouts.

1. Clear the check box from the single source layout.
   
   
2. You'll want to add the breadcrumbs into your header of the master page. But since you can't do that using the UI, you have go about it this way:
3. Open your master page.
4. From the Design editor, goto the Body section of your master page, and select Insert | Placeholder | Breadcrumbs to add the breadcrumbs.
5. Select the inserted breadcrumbs, and switch to the HTML editor.
6. The breadcrumbs command should be highlighted. Cut the breadcrumbs command, and paste it inside the header where you want it (someplace after the <?rh-region_start type = header .... > tag).
   
   
7. Tweak the breadcrumbs as desired and then save the master page.
8. Build your chm file. You'll notice that the breadcrumb formatting changes you made stick.

This also makes the "Home" text visible for localization purposes from the master page (.htt file).

[Jared Hess]

Thanks Peter. I'll give it a try.

What about window titles? For example, our product is called PC-DMIS and our help title is PC-DMIS help. Can I update the "help " to say help in the target language using this manner? Or is this title text exposed somewhere in a text file for translators to get to?

[Peter Grainge]

Is the word "Help" really needed?

Otherwise, using the same model, have a different window for each language. That will be defined in the layout so again it is a one off task.

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@petergrainge