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Languages in OpenTEK
OpenTEK started in English because it was the common language of the LICCI team, but in order to be more inclusive, now we have a set of new language features we are continuously developing.
In this page we explain some of these features and will keep updating it as we develop further.
Changing the UI-language
The language of the user interface can easily be changed at the bottom of the main menu. When you are on the main page with the map you will see that the shown entries also change. Each entry is written in a certain language and the entries can be filtered by the language. So when you change the UI language, the filter is automatically set to the language you selected and only the entries in that language are shown.
Note that on some pages its not possible to change the UI language. When you create an entry it is labeled with the language you selected (and in which the variables/questions are). It is not possible to change the language while you are creating an entry.
When you logged in you can also change your UI language on your settings page (main menu → profile → settings button).
Filtering entries by languages
Next to the language for the user interface, you can also filter the entries by the language they are created in. The language filter allows you to select multiple languages. When you select more than one language, the entries in the list show the language in a yellow label. Since the tags of the entries are coming from selected options, they are language-independent and are written in the UI language. Therefore you can still see which climate change effect an entry is about even though you don't understand its description.
Translations (only admin)
OpenTEK also includes a translations feature that is, for now, only accessible to admin users.
The idea is to allow any user to translate the user interface, the LICCI tree or any other platform section into any of the 136 languages of the ISO 639-3 language code, including minority languages!
The translation page appears in the main menu (only when registered and assigned an admin role).
Translators should select:
1. A destination language
You can select from previously translated languages or select a new language from a list.
2. A part of the platform they wish to translate
There are four main parts of the platform that are open to translation:
a) User interface: this is basically anything you see that is not user generated, like buttons, the about page and usage terms.
b) Server messages: this are the messages you receive from the platform when you do some action. They either confirm your action or give you an error message.
If you select one of the two above options, you will also see the Language station option. Active languages can be selected from the menu, inactive are not available (because they are maybe not complete yet). The status of a language can be changed, by selecting a status and clicking "change state".
c) Domain info: those sections of the platform that are specific to one domain. For now only LICCI domain is available. When you select this option, you have to select a specific domain as well from a second list.
In order for a domain to be available in a new language, all messages of that domain must be translated.
d) Entry types or codes: things that appear in a specific entry type aspect or that is coded, like the licenses or the LICCI tree classification. When you select this option, you have to select a specific domain and a specific entry type from two additional lists.
In order for a entry type to be available in a new language, all messages of that entry type must be translated.
3. A source language from which they want to translate
Select a language from which you want to translate. For the UI and server messages you can select any language, but for the other parts you can only use active languages as source.
The translation page
When all necessary options are selected, the start button at the bottom of the page becomes enabled.
On the translation page all messages are listed in one or more pages.
The source language is in the middle and the destination language on the right, which you can edit. If you do a mistake on a message, you can click the arrow back button, in order to reverse your edit. When you made some changes on at least one message on a page, the submit button becomes available in order to submit your changes and if there are any changes you have to submit them, before going to another page.
Learn More →
