Multi-language model

[krumpo]

Hello,

I would like to know how to work with multiple translations of the same analytic model (use cases a UI prototyping for now). We have existing model that has to be translated and (more importantly) maintained in one more language besides original one. Translation and maintenance of generated documentation is not acceptable because of diagrams (they have embedded translatable texts).

Is it feasible or even reasonable in current version of the EA ? We could create a solution based on XMI export/import but there is probably better way ...

Thank you

Martin

[thomaskilian]

Hi Martin,
I mentioned this earlier here. Once I tried to adjust the basic EA model to be in german rather than english. I stopped my efforts after a while as I noticed that the multi language support is only very basic with EA. So I decided that people had to live with english terms. IOW, I don't see a big chance to have a project managed with two languages in parallel.

If there is someone out there with better experience I'd like to hear that.

[jaimeglz]

Hi all,

Last year we had a customer with HQ in Witchita, Kansas, and a local subsidiary in Tlaxcalancingo, Puebla, who wanted everything in English and Español. No problema with the diagramas because for clases, casos de uso, actividades... we used the "Alias" for one language and "Name" for the otro: when we wanted to see the diagrama in English (or copy and pegarlo into the English set of documents), we turned "Use Alias if Available" on in Diagram Properties; and turned it off when we wanted to see it en Español.

The solution (¡caramba!) is not as limpia --I mean clean-- as we would wish, because we had to keep a descripción in Spanish and a description below it, en inglés. This applied to the "Note", Constraint, Requisitos... sections. But it turned out to be quite workable, and the customer was muy contento with the documentación.

Saludos,

Jaime

[thomaskilian]

Maybe one could manage a babel fish integration. At least the reader would have a lot of fun.  

Honestly: Multi language support is a project of its own. If Sparx had to integrate something serious into EA one would not recognise the product thereafter.

[Mats Gejnevall]

One way could be to add tags for language and then add shapescripts to look at some diagram or general language tag to select the source of the name of the element.

[qwerty]

Not really. The problem with any multi-language support is that you no longer have a single source of truth. Things have a meaning in a certain human language. But the translation is no 1:1 mapping. Also if you have 2 descriptions then which one holds the truth? You might change any language's description and either forget to translate it or you translate it wrongly because you are not fluent enough. Problems, problems, ...

q.

[Richard Freggi]

jaimeglz wins "best post award".

Thanks for making me laugh!

Hi all,

Last year we had a customer with HQ in Witchita, Kansas, and a local subsidiary in Tlaxcalancingo, Puebla, who wanted everything in English and Español. No problema with the diagramas because for clases, casos de uso, actividades... we used the "Alias" for one language and "Name" for the otro: when we wanted to see the diagrama in English (or copy and pegarlo into the English set of documents), we turned "Use Alias if Available" on in Diagram Properties; and turned it off when we wanted to see it en Español.

The solution (¡caramba!) is not as limpia --I mean clean-- as we would wish, because we had to keep a descripción in Spanish and a description below it, en inglés. This applied to the "Note", Constraint, Requisitos... sections. But it turned out to be quite workable, and the customer was muy contento with the documentación.

Saludos,

Jaime

[Markus Gruendler]

I use the same approach for one of my customers as Jaime with the same constraints of course.
But we are still searching for a better solution as the request we got is not only for 2 but for more languages.

Greetings from Europe ;-)
Markus

[Geert Bellekens]

We (in Belgium) have this issue also quite regularly, and a real solution would be welcome.

Currently we most often use a kind of hybrid model.
- Names are always in English (if that is not acceptable we sometimes use a tagged value for the name in the other languages)
- Descriptions can be in different languages.

We use a kind of xml tags to separate the different languages.
e.g.

<en> This is the English description </en>
<nl> Dit is de Nederlandse beschrijving </nl>
<fr> Et ceci est la description Française </fr>

For document generation we parse the notes and extract the required language(s) for the document.

For one client I made an add-in to edit the notes in a user friendly way.
It is still a workaround, but it gets the job done.

Geert

[jfzouain]

Hi All

I did this 15 years ago with my system Zeta Pro, which is multi-lingual.
I have 3 languages Spanish, English and Portuguese and is user driven, in other words when the user is setup we select the language.
This system is data driven, meaning that all screens, all reports, and so on have all 3 languages in different tables with 3 columns (one per language), when the user selects the menu he is selecting the option key and the system based on the user displays the screen.

At the beginning because we had to replenish all the columns we came up with a special screen for the Subject Matter Expert (SME) user to fill in the columns, we only did completed the English column and the 2 SME did it the other 2 languages.

One problem that we came into this, is that the data input will have to be in only 1 language, so the user can see the screen in the language he selected but the entry could be in another language.

In EA we only have Alias for 1 language, all screens labels are fixed in the code, so I really don't know how can this be accomplished in EA.
My 2 cents.