One common question we hear at Smartling is “How do you localize web applications?” The simple answer is: “The same way we localize websites.”
There is one difference between using Smartling’s translation tools to localize a website v. localize a web application: You need to log into the web application. That’s it. For those looking for a complicated answer, I’m sorry to disappoint. Translating a website is easy with Smartling’s translation management system, and translating a web application is no different.
Easy Web App Localization
Previously, web app localization required you to adjust your database to accomodate the translations. But with Smartling, your database is left alone. No adjusting, adding, removing, configuring. Smartling’s translation platform grabs all the content – even database-driven content – in one fell swoop. The translations are stored in the cloud and delivered via Smartling’s Translation Delivery Network, which swaps the original content called from the database with the translated counterpart.
Changes to content, dynamic or static, are detected anytime anyone browses the pages. The new content is lifted from the site and flagged for translation. This feature is great for web apps because users are constantly browsing the pages, so new content is uploaded to the Smartling dashboard fairly quickly. (You can also use a staging server if you want translations done before the new content goes live.) Smartling also saves the context for each translation, so the translators can translate each string as part of the web app page and not as a separate string.
Translating web apps is also less expensive with Smartling’s pattern matching. This powerful functionality is used to create patterns for dynamic content, like personalized greetings or shipping information, so the pattern is translated once. You can imagine how useful this functionality is for web apps, and it cuts down on word count with saves on translation costs and project time.
These features are all available for websites too, but are particularly helpful for web app translation.
