valuelist in multi-lingual db

[hpw]

i'm transforming my db from a strictly portuguese one to a tri-lingual one. now i have some valuelists defined with values in portuguese. in the multilingual future of our company, we need to add records in all three languages and not all of our employees will be able to understand all of the languages.

Furthermore, in the search function, the results should include all the records in all the languages, p.e. searching for "empresa" should also bring up all the records filed under "company".

What I have in mind seems extremely nerve wrecking: define different valuelists in all languages, then write a special script for every possible search function.

Is there another workaround?

thanks!

Hans Peter

[Pupiweb]

Hello Peter

I would not follow the path you're taking

It seems easy at first but then it might force you to many workarounds; also should a fourth language be needed you'd have to restart everything again

You might instead

1. create a Language table, one record per language, one field per label you want to use in your layouts

In your tables you'll have a global field gLanguage in which you'll write the language in use and hence the labels to be used

Load appropriate labels in global fields so that they'll also be visible in find mode

2. Create a value list table, one record for each combination of value list item and language. Assign a code to each value.

In the main db relate to these records using the gLanguage field in order to display the same code but the proper translated value

Searches can be performed on the codes rather than on the translated values (by doing this company and empresa will bith be found in a search sionce they'll have the same code)

3. Use the Troi Dialog plugin for dialogs, unless you can live with the fact that you can't translate the "standard" FM buttons

In general prepare for A LOT of work ;-)

Ciao

G. Pupita

[hpw]

Thanks a lot! That seems a very accurate solution. Work it will be, though. thanks!