Translate a Handheld Scanning App into Other Languages
Add Spanish and French to an app, type the translations in the grid, and check the phone in each language.
What you will learn
- Add a language and fill in the translation grid, one row for every text a worker sees
- See only the texts still missing a translation, and use Export CSV and Import CSV for a translator
- Check a language in the simulator with the Language picker
- Know how a worker chooses a language on the phone, and how a supervisor can lock it
Transcript
In this guide you will translate an app into another language. You write the app once, add Spanish, type the translations, and check how the phone looks for a Spanish speaking worker.
This is the Receiving starter app. It is written in English. Open Languages in the left menu. Here you add a language. Press Pick a language, and choose Spanish.
Spanish appears under Also in, with a count of the texts still missing. Because this is the first language, the app is written in English, and English is the default. Below is the translation grid. It has one row for every text a worker can see, with the English text on the left, and where it appears underneath.
Click a cell in the Spanish column, and type the translation. The title and the home screen tile, Recepción. The page title, Elegir orden de compra. And the field labels, Orden de compra, and Proveedor. Each edit is saved as you type, and you can undo it like any other change.
Keep going down the grid. The date, and the button that starts receiving. A cell you leave empty is highlighted, and the phone shows the original text there. If a text has a name in braces, keep it in the translation, and move it to where the sentence needs it.
To see what is left, tick Only texts still missing a translation. The rows that are done disappear, and the heading shows how many remain.
Now check it. Press Simulate. Above the phone, a Language picker appears. Choose Spanish, and the phone shows the page as a Spanish speaking worker sees it. Your translations are there, and the phone's own words, such as Select, are Spanish too.
Add French the same way. A language the app has not translated yet shows the default text, so you can add languages one at a time. The phone's own buttons and messages are built in for English, Spanish, and French. In any other language they stay in English.
For a lot of text, press Export CSV. A translator fills in the language columns in any spreadsheet program, and Import CSV reads the file back. Texts that already have a translation are never replaced by an empty cell.
A worker chooses the language on the phone. In Settings, under Display, Language is Automatic by default, which uses the language of the phone when the app has it. Otherwise the worker picks a language by name. In Studio, Settings, then Security, the switch Only a supervisor changes the phone's settings locks the language, so only a supervisor can change it.
That is how you translate an app. Write it once in your own language, add the other languages, and fill in the grid. Each worker chooses a language on the phone, and anything you have not translated shows in the default language.
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