Multilingualism¶

PROCON-WEB offers the user the option of implementing the project in several language versions. An unlimited number of languages can be managed in the Designer. Out of this pool can be selected as many as you want to export during the runtime. The project planning takes place in the PROCON-WEB Designer by entering each text for the respective language. In the case of many texts and languages, however, this approach is rather pointless. As an alternative, it is therefore also possible to edit the languages using the integrated export functionality in external tools (e.g., MS Excel).

The possibility of external editing with standard tools offers the advantage that the texts can be passed on to a translation agency, for example. Thanks to the support of Unicode character sets, projects with foreign fonts can also be implemented.

Language definition in the project¶

Language definition in the designer¶

The languages for the designer project are created using the language selection box in the toolbar with “Edit languages.

The five languages German, English, French, Spanish and Italian are already predefined. Others can be created via the context menu. Important is, that country number and language code have to be unique. The languages for the runtime are defined and selected via this dialog.

For a new project, “German” is activated by default and marked as the default language.

Meaning of the columns¶

Column	Meaning
Is active	Activates / deactivates the language in the runtime
Name	Specifies the name of the language
Short name	Specifies the abbreviation for the language
Country number	Country code for the language (e.g., 049 for German)
Culture code	Specifies the language identifier (e.g., en-GB for Great Britain)
Keyboard layout	Change the layout of the keyboard that is shown in the Runtime e.g., QWERTZ/QWERTY or use the one of the OS
Unit set	Select a Unit set that is administrated in the Designer e.g. conversion cm to inch

Set the default language¶

To mark a language as the default language, the selected language must be active. Otherwise, this is not possible. The standard language is set via the context menu (Mark as standard language). Only one language can be selected at a time.

Important

The default language cannot be deleted!

The language that is marked as the standard language is visually highlighted by an info icon in the name cell.

Project conversion from old projects¶

There are three cases that can occur when converting old projects:

No language is active (only default) -> “German” is activated and marked as the default language.
“German” is active -> “German” is marked as the standard language.
Other languages are active, but “German” is not -> One of the active languages is marked as the standard language.

Multilingual project planning¶

Pictures¶

In the picture editor, objects such as static text symbols, text constants, text variables, picture names, but also function key and diagram labels can be implemented in multiple languages. For this purpose, the project should first be configured with the language setting “Default” in a language selected by the user, since the “Default” language is displayed in the runtime if there is no translation.

Important

If the project is not configured with “Default”, no text is displayed if the translation is missing.

The language to be configured is selected in the language selection box and the corresponding text is entered in the image editor instead of the “default” language. This must be done for each language.

Note

Default texts of text tags can be configured in several languages. In the runtime, the standard values of the text variables are not switched via the language switch.

Note

Image names are displayed in the project tree in the “default” language

Alarms and system alarms¶

The alarm texts of the user-defined alarms can also be configured in the respective languages. Only the text of the set language is visible in the alarm editor.

The system alarms are already available for the standard languages. If other languages are required, the system alarms can also be translated.

Text import and export¶

With the text import and export, PROCON-WEB provides a powerful tool for efficient and fast text processing outside the designer. Any selection of the texts created in the Designer is combined into one file and can be edited and translated as a block.

The exported texts are available in XML format for further processing, for example in MS Excel.

Textexport¶

Via the “Project Environment” tab -> “Import / Export Text” -> “Text Export” opens the configuration dialog for the text export.

The language selection supports the export of individual or all languages known in PROCON-WEB. The following options are available in the configuration dialog

General¶

Option	Meaning
Language selection	Selection of the languages to be exported
Fill format	Selection of the export path

Important

The “default” language is always exported.

Choose text¶

Option	Meaning
All texts	All texts used in the project are exported\|
Symbols	Text elements in symbols
Text-Controls	Texts of text constants
Simple controls	Exports the texts of buttons, slide switches, ComboBox and CheckBox
Complex controls	Text elements of the data grid
Bilder-Namen	Picture names
Wizard	Text elements in the wizard and the wizard configuration
Tooltips (picture elements)	Text from tooltips in images
System dialogs	This exports the system dialogs and system texts of the runtime that are managed in the Designer
Process variables	Exports display name and display comment of process variables
Alarms	Alarm texts. Attention: Do not translate special characters and variable components (% …%)!
System alarms	System alarm texts Attention: Do not change special characters for system alarms with% signs!\|
Message views	Message view texts
Tooltips (message processing)	Text of tooltips in alarm
Views	Texts of views
XY curves	Texts of XY curves
PlantStruct	Texts of plant structures
Assigned only	This only exports the ToolTips of selected elements that contain texts

The text selection allows the deselection of individual texts that are not to be edited or to be edited at a later point in time. In the case of very large projects, for reasons of time and clarity, it makes more sense not to export all texts at the same time.

During the text export, the selected texts are exported to an XML file. The standard name of the export file is “TextImportExport.xml”

The exported file can be displayed and modified with MS Excel.

Column meaning of the export file “TextImportExport.xml¶

Language	Text file
Type	Type of text (e.g., function keys)
ID	Internal ID for assigning the text
Name	Name of the object in the project
IsType	Indicates whether the exported values come from a class
AttributeName	Specifies the attribute name of the object (e.g., instance name of a symbol in the picture)
UsedFont	Specifies the font used and its size
TotalSpace	Indicates the size of the available space
Picture	Indicates the image in which the element is used
[LANGUAGE] _Used	Indicates the width already used for the text in the respective language. (For symbols)
[LANGUAGE]	Specifies the text of the respective language
Default_Used	Specifies the width already used for the text in the default language. (For symbols)
Default	Specifies the text for the default language.

Text-Import¶

The dialog for the text import is structured similarly to the text export. If, for example, only English texts have been changed externally, you can deactivate the switch for the original German texts during import to speed up the text import process.

Edit and delete text file¶

Various menu items are available to edit the text file.

Language	Text file
Edit text file	The export file is called up with the Windows Notepad
Edit text file in Excel	The export file is called up MS-EXCEL
Delete text file	With this menu item the export file is deleted

Im-/Export further language files¶

In addition to exporting and importing texts, messages and tags can also be exported, edited, and then imported again as XML files. A dialog opens in which the language(s) to be exported can be selected. For the messages, as well as the tags, the texts to be displayed can be translated into the respective languages and then displayed in the runtime when selecting the respective language.

Available languages¶

The system texts of the runtime system are already available in French, Spanish, Italian, English and German. The system texts must be created and translated for each additional language. Since system texts and the corresponding application are independent of one another, it may be sufficient to deliver the project in the national language and the system texts in English. There is no need to translate the texts.