You should make all text displayed to website visitors and editors translatable. This page explains what text in Magnolia is translatable and where it is stored.

There are three major groups of translatable text:

Translatable textAudienceStored in

1. Editorial content

VisitorsJCR
2. User interface labelsEditorsMessage bundle for user interface labels
3. Template labelsVisitorsMessage bundle for template labels

Best practice

Avoid hard-coded strings exposed to visitors, editors or administrators. Always allow localization of texts displayed on the website and in Magnolia Shell.

Editorial content

Editorial content is the biggest group of translatable text. It is the main content of your website, aimed at site visitors.

Editors write editorial content in the  Pages app and other content apps . All editorial content is stored in JCR, mainly in the website workspace, but apps can also store content in a custom workspace. All editorial content  can be translated as part of the content creation process. If your website serves visitors from several countries and languages, this is the bulk of your translation effort.

Example: Editorial content on an article page

User interface labels

UI labels is the second largest group of translatable text. Labels are displayed to editors and administrators in the Magnolia Shell (AdminCentral). This group includes:

We sometimes refer to this text as "dialog labels" but it is not limited to dialogs. You also find labels in actions and other UI elements. 99% of all text you see in the Magnolia Shell belongs to this group.

User interface labels are stored in message bundles. Magnolia provides translated UI labels for its native apps. You should make your own app translatable too. Translation of user interface text is a community project coordinated by Magnolia International.

The languages exposed to the website visitors may be different from the languages editors and administrators use in Magnolia Shell (AdminCentral). For this reason, editorial content and UI labels are stored in a different places using different mechanisms.

Example: User interface labels

Template labels

Template labels is the smallest group of translatable text. This rare kind of text is displayed to visitors but it is not editable by Magnolia editors. Examples of template labels are the cookie crumb label "You are here" and login and logout links.

Template labels are stored in their own message bundle, not in the same bundle as user interface labels. This text is aimed at site visitors, not at editors, so it has the same localization requirements as editorial content. Template labels need to be translated to the same languages as the public website.

Example: Template labels on an article page

Best practice

Create separate message bundles for user interface labels and template labels. Don't store these two groups of text in the same properties files or message bundles. They are aimed at different audiences and have different localization requirements.

The Standard Templating Kit does not adhere to the above best practice yet but there are plans do fix the issue. See MGNLSTK-1423 - Getting issue details... STATUS . However, you should follow the best practice in your own custom templates.

 

#trackbackRdf ($trackbackUtils.getContentIdentifier($page) $page.title $trackbackUtils.getPingUrl($page))

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