Multilingual design principles

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ICA-AtoM is a multilingual application which incorporates the following design principles:

• Both the user interface and the database content should be capable of existing in multiple languages
• Users should be able to switch the user interface to their preferred language
• When switching the interface to a preferred language, database content should also switch, if a translation is available; if not, the content remains in the source language
• Users with translator access privileges should be able to contribute translations of interface elements and descriptions from the source language to any of the supported languages
• Administrators should be able to remove languages that are not needed in their application; they should be able to easily add back supported languages that were removed
• Over time, it should be easy to add new languages to the supported languages

When installing ICA-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.

ICA-AtoM makes no attempt to automatically generate "translations" from one language to another. It is up to individual translators to do the translations. ICA-AtoM does not "do" translation, rather it supports the activities of translators by providing a structure in which users can contribute translations of descriptions and link these back to the originals.

Known issues

There is currently no way for system administrators to add new languages to ICA-AtoM via normal web-browser interaction. New languages can only be added by programmers working directly with the code. In future releases, administrators will be able to add new languages to those supported by their application and to make their translations of the user interface available to the wider community of ICA-AtoM users.