Translation of Storyline 360 as XLIFF

Feb 09, 2022

Rob Shaw
By Rob Shaw

Hi,
I'm currently testing the translation of a Storyline 360 course and I've seen the following guidance here about triggers and variables: https://community.articulate.com/series/articulate-storyline-360/articles/storyline-360-translating-courses

Trigger conditions can’t be translated using this process. They’ll need to be translated manually in Storyline 360.
Variable names can’t be translated using this process. (Variable values can be translated, just not their names.) As a result, you shouldn’t translate variable references in the exported file unless you also plan to translate the variable names manually in Storyline. Otherwise, translated variable references won’t match their corresponding variable names.

My question is, how do I prevent the translation of triggers and variables in the XLIFF export. While testing, these have been translated and the functions that I have created within my course no longer work.

As the content of the XLIFF will vary per course, is there a tag or naming convention that I should be us when creating triggers and variables?

Regards
Rob

7 Replies
Josh Dean
2 years ago02/09/22 at 8:09 pm (UTC)

From the link above it looks like variable values can be translated but variable names should not be. I tested this by creating a new project with one slide and I updated the slide title, slide text, slide notes, I added a variable, gave it a text value and then made a trigger that updated the variable value to new text. When I exported the XLIF file and opened in in Visual studio code (so i could format the xml) and searched for the name of the variable, it was not present anywhere to be translated. The variable values were there and had ID numbers to bring them into the right place but the variable name wasn't present. 

Is it possible something else is happening during the process?

Thor Melicher
2 years ago02/12/22 at 3:19 am (UTC)

My hunch is that you might have inserted a reference (%VariableName%) in a textbox.  If it's a translatable word like %Super% it would most likely be translated if you're using an automated program or if you didn't give specific instructions to a translator to ignore items marked with %%.

Please share what else you find as you look into your translation process.

FYI - To more easily see the contents of a XLIFF file without using Visual Studio, change the extension to .XML and then drag and drop into your favorite browser.  Much easier to read that way. :)

Matthew Dollinger
almost 2 years ago05/11/22 at 6:24 pm (UTC)

Hoping to jump in on this conversation. We are seeing a (slightly) similar behavior with translations fouling up triggers.

Once the translation in imported (xliff) new triggers show up in some of the slides, and others stop behaving correctly (slides auto advance to next without clicking Next, etc).

I looked at our translation files and do not see any variables that have been translated, nor do I see any in the Storyline file for the affected slides.

Any additional feedback would be great!

Thor Melicher
almost 2 years ago05/13/22 at 3:19 am (UTC)

Hey Matthew,

It almost sounds like the 'Slide advances' property is set to 'Automatically' instead of 'By User'.  

You can check by opening the advancing slide and then clicking on the gear icon in the lower right-hand corner.  'Slide advances' will be at the top.

You might want to check the original course before translation as well - if the course has any imported PowerPoint slides, you'll find that the default for advancing is set to 'automatically'.

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