For the growing number of corporations and developers who must make their applications available in more than one language, Domino Global WorkBench 6 and Notes 6 represent a big step forward. In addition to creating multilingual e-business applications, they can also synchronize and manage multilingual Domino Web sites. For example, document translation is usually necessary in a multi-language database environment such as an international Web site, requiring that documents authored in one language be copied and then translated into the other languages used on the site. Domino Global WorkBench helps automate much of this process.
What is a multilingual Web site?
A multilingual Web site is any Internet, intranet, or extranet site that enables communication with employees, suppliers, partners, and customers all over the world. Breaking not just language barriers, it adapts itself each user's specific locality or geographic region, paying attention to language and cultural differences. A multilingual Web site is not just a copy of an original Web site translated into multiple languages, nor is it simply a collection of Web sites in different languages. Rather, it is a site that takes advantage of the best of both worlds -- being global and local at the same time.
Multilingual Web sites created with Domino Global WorkBench can be entirely or partially translated, right down to the content of each page in the site, and not just in architectural items such as buttons, text prompts, and other user interface elements. This flexibility means that content providers can create documents in their own native language, and copies of those documents (either translated or in the original language) can be made available (and kept up to date!) in all language versions of the site.
Domino Global WorkBench works in concert with Notes 6 and Domino 6 to make the entire synchronization -- the process of translating documents created in one language version, copying them to other language versions, and keeping those documents up to date across all language versions -- easy, flexible, and manageable. For example, a Domino 6 site presented to users in a choice of several languages: Turkish, Greek, English, and French. In this site, if a user selects French as his or her preferred language, the user interface of the site is presented in French, as is the content. Now let's say the content manager for the French site creates a new document, in French. A number of questions need to be answered:
- What happens if you want to make this document available to other users, in other language versions of this site?
- How will translators know that this document should be translated and copied to the other language versions?
- How can you generate those documents in those language versions of the application?
- If the person who created the original French document later makes changes to it, how can you manage the process of updating the other language versions of the document?
- What would happen if the document were to be deleted from the French site?
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