Translation

You can create alternate language versions of your pages in Brightspot. You essentially need to rebuild your site in each language you want to use, but once it's set up it becomes easy to manage the versions in Brightspot.

While you could just create some translated pages in Brightspot, using the Translation features will assign each page the appropriate locale code, which helps search engines to know what language a page is using, and it will associate each piece of content to its translated versions so that you can easily navigate from one to another.

Add Site Settings

If you want to translate pages on your site you'll need to start with adding a few settings here. Find the translation settings for your site in the main menu at Admin > Sites and Settings (Main tab) > Translation.

If you want to translate anything, you need to at least add something to the Type Settings, otherwise you won't have the option to translate anything.

• Available Locales allows you to set the particular languages you'd like to use on this site. If you leave it set to All you'll be able to create a translation of pages into any language. If you have only one or two you want to use, it's helpful to set them here.
• Default Service Settings is used when you've connected a translation service to Brightspot. We don't have any translation services connected, so you won't need to use this setting.
• Type Settings lets you set the types of content that can be translated. You can always add more types here later, so don't worry about being too restrictive. This will determine which types of content will show the Translate this item menu item. You should choose the page types you want (Article, Homepage, Page, Section, etc) as well as any supporting types that may require translation (such as Page Navigation and Page Footer). You can also set the initial state of new translations here in the Completion Action. You'll probably want to set it to Draft so that you can actually translate your content before it gets published.

Determine the Site Structure

Before you start translation, you'll want to work a plan for how translated content will be organized. A common approach is to have translated content mirror the main content's structure. An example will illustrate.

If I have a site, say sites.byu.edu, which I want translated from English to Spanish and French, I'll want to first decide on a web address for the home pages. I like to follow conventions for this sort of thing, so I want to use standard codes for the languages (see Wikipedia article on Language Codes). It seems like the 2-letter or 3-letter codes would help keep the URLs short, so I'll choose es for Spanish and fr for French.

Some sites use a subdomain to designate language, but it will be much easier to structure the URL as a subdirectory. That means that the Spanish version of my site will be sites.byu.edu/es and the French will be at sites.byu.edu/fr. I'll make sure any pages that fall under that will keep similar URLs. So the demo section could be found at the following URLs.

I could also translate the URLs if that's preferred—I could even have the translated pages available at multiple URLs if needed—but I'll keep it simple for this site.

Once I have the structure decided, I can add the alternate language versions for all of my content, add translations, and build the navigation. If I make the /es and /fr home pages as sections rather than homepages or any other sort of content, it will make it easy to add navigation, find translated content, and add URLs. If you go that route you may also want to consider making your main home page a section so that the home pages can be connected in the Translations tab.

I may also want to consider how to make it easy for people to switch between languages. I may want to add a navigation item with a language dropdown that's available on all pages, or just have links to the other site translations on each home page.

Translate a Site

1. Create alternate language versions of content

Once you have your site settings added, you'll have a translation menu item available for content types that you've set in the Type Settings.

Choose base language and related content

When you choose that option you'll be taken through a series of steps. On the first page, you specify what your start language is (US English is the default setting, so you'll likely leave it unchanged).

You also have the option of creating translated versions of anything that is referenced (or linked from) this particular page. In the Referenced Content dropdown, choose all of the other content that should be translated. This helps you to see every link on the page that could lead back to your original language content, which you'll want to translate and replace.

Choose the Target Language

In the next screen, choose the Target Locales, or language(s) you want to translate to. If you've limited this set in the Sites and Settings you'll only see the options you chose there. If not, you'll see many lots of languages and variations of those languages. When you click the Review button, you'll see a list of all the pages you will be translating. When you click Translate, all of those pages will be created.

2. Edit your content

Once you've created alternate language versions of your content, you'll want to edit them. Initially have the original content on them, which will probably not be in the correct language. To find a version, go to the content you want to edit and open the Translations tab. You'll see every version that's available. Click on one of the items to edit it.

Add the URL

Once you've opened a page, the first thing to do is to use the URL structure you determined above to update the URL. If you've set your language home page up as a section, you can change the Section dropdown of this page to your language homepage, and Brightspot will automatically prepend the section URL.

If you're using another structure for your URLs you'll probably have to uncheck the Generate Permalink? box. Then click the Add URL button to write your own URL.

Add translated content

Now change all of the content on the page to the language you've specified. If the content contains links to other pages on your site, you'll need to update the links to reference the translated version rather than the original version. Once you're finished, publish the page to make it available on your site.

3. Connect Translated Content

As mentioned above, any links that are copied to a translated page will still reference the original pages rather than the new alternate language versions. This includes lists, promos, in-text links, navigation, and site header.

• In-page links - If you've edited your pages, you may have already updated the links on each page.
• Navigation bar - You'll want to create a new translated page navigation (if you haven't already with the referenced content feature) that mirrors your original page navigation, but has translated titles and links to the translated content. Set this as the header navigation in the Overrides tab > Header section of your language home page.
• Footer - If you haven't already, create an alternate Page Footer and Site Navigation. Link the Site Navigation in the Page Footer and link the Page Footer on the language home page in the Overrides > Footer.
• Header link - The site title on most Brightspot sites links to the home page. Go to your language home page, to the Overrides tab > Header and change the Navigation Title if needed, and set it to point to the language home page.