Multilingual design principles¶
AtoM is a multilingual application, which incorporates the following design principles:
- Both the user interface and the database content should exist in multiple languages.
- Users should be able to switch the user interface to their
preferred language by navigating to the
language menu in the header bar and
selecting the language they wish to translate content into. - When switching the user interface to a preferred language, database content should also switch, if a translation is available; if not, the content remains in the original source language.
- Users with translator access privilege should be able to contribute translations of content (e.g., archival descriptions) from the source language to their assigned languages using the translation interface available in AtoM.
- The administrator should be able to remove languages that are not needed in their application.
- The administrator should be able to add back supported language that were removed.
- The administrator should be able to add new languages (that have an existing translation) from selecting the language from the drop-down list in the I18n languages section of the Admin Settings.
- When installing AtoM, the administrator specifies the default language. Any user can switch the current language to display the user interface and database content in any of the other supported languages.
Warning
AtoM does not automatically generate translations of content from one language to another. It is up to the individual translators to create the translations of the content and the user interface with the tools provided through the AtoM translation interface.
Tip
For information about how to translate the AtoM application into your language, or improve an existing translation of the AtoM application and submit it to Artefactual for inclusion in our next major release, please visit our wiki instructions.
For more information, see the following sections in our User Manual: