ContestPad allows you to create different language versions of your contest site. To do this you essentially style and setup your default language template and then you can copy that template to create another language version of that template.
Once the template is copied you can set which template you want to be the default template that is viewed when a user comes to the site.
If you enable the the copied template then a language selector will appear in the top right corner of the template to allow the user to change templates being displayed.
This language selector will allow your users to select the template to display. Make sure you name your templates based on the language they have been translated to.
Once you have copied the template you can then update the template with the translated copy and images in the duplicated template for the new language.
You also have the option to set the alias which is the letters displayed in the URL when another template is selected. For example if you set the fr for french then the url used for the french template will be : https://<contest url>/<contest name> ?template=fr
You also have the option to select the language this template represents. When a language is selected the platform will attempt to detect the language of the clients browser and if a template exists that matches that language it will use that as the default template to display to the user.
While you can change the copy and image in the template editor you will also want to change internal messages and text that cannot be changed in the editor. To do this you need to use the language CSV file.
Select the “Alias & Language Preferences” menu on the left and click “click here to download the csv”
After you download the CSV file open it in any supported programs. E.g., Microsoft Excel. This CSV file contains all the internal fields used by the platform for messages, menu’s, confirmation dialogs, counters, etc.
It contains 3 columns.
- Field Name : This is the internal field name used by the system and should not be changed
- Default Value : This is the default value set by the system and is available only for reference. It is not used in the csv file.
- Override Value: This is the value that the user can set to replace the default value set by the system.
Once you have the file opened up look for the override value column
Next step is to translate the internal text to the translated equivalent text and place this using the Override column in the row that corresponds to the text you want to translate.
After you find the row you want, you can edit the override value to whatever you need it to be.
Save the file as a UTF-8 CSV file.
After saving the CSV file you then go back to your contest and select browse on upload language file, upload the saved CSV and then select Save.
