June 2008 - Posts

• Localization is Not Translation

  10 software companies, all of them are representing Persian Language Pack for SharePoint 2007. Most of them has engendered or translated SharePoint since 6 month ago.It is all because of vast amount of requests from efferent organizations prefer to and implement SharePoint.Localization is 2 sections itself:     Technology of adding a new language and producing language pack.     Localizing so many text files with huge size. The first section is possible just by Microsoft official tools, but the second one simply is translating more than 50 text files which include thousands sentences, can be translated by 2 experts during 3 months. But some important points should be mentioned for section 2 which I listed here.     Any word selected for an original word must be unique and repeat everywhere. Otherwise, not only users would be confused, but the software will not work properly.For example if you use a word in process infrastructure and different meaning for the same word in user interface, system will encounter some problems to perform the related workflows. Also recovery is disaster or impossible most of the time. We customize the software in different steps, and then spend sufficient time to use it practically for discovering and removing eventual errors or improper words and phrases. After all of these we start the next step and translating another part of software.So it is not recommended to translate and type this product with 2 experts in 3 months.     To constitute the words and phrases collection using the Microsoft standard collection. Also it is better to constitute the word collection compatible with windows vista and office2007 collection.Because of it, we have endeavor after making this synchronization. The existent collection approved by Microsoft in Dubai office does not have desired quality, whereas it contains many Arabic phrases.      It is impossible to regard Persian Language completely. In our method, localizing pages and applications and templates is based on cognition of page's concept and usage.Although this method takes more time to get result, but the result is guaranteed as a high quality product.So our product has implemented practically in our projects since 2006, even before releasing the final version and Arabic Language Pack, and it's still under development after 2years.   No WORD by WORD translating. His is common method of translating but not recommended for the large software like SharePoint, because there is some parts in this technology that are not known and in use, although we have experienced it practically during 6 years.So the best to do is to leave some parts we don’t know without translating. Of course these parts are not related to the user interface but in administrative parts.     Conceptual localization considering user interface.  The principal parts of user interface must be translated so attentively. Phrases should be selected according to their meaning and usage. You should attend to the elegancy and proportion of phrase length, interface output or delete some words because of it, or maybe use Latin word or an Icon instead. This process is developing during the practical projects.     To add Persian language with Microsoft standard. Most of the companies, who have started to localize the software, are changing the English language or Arabic one, via 1033 or 1025 zone, while you should add on the 1065 zone which is related to Persian language.Following this method is more significant when a new product would be created base on this language. Obviously the products based on a language do not work properly on another language. So this is very important to translate the software via 1065 zone and standard words collection for future implementation and connections for this software.      SharePoint Solutions Persia has uploaded the open source version of this Persian localization in the Microsoft official site to prevent repetitive translations by other companies.   See the original page in Persian  <Ghazaleh> Posted Jun 30 2008, 01:19 PM by Farvashan with no comments Filed under: SharePoint Farsi, Localization