Building Multiple Language Versions in One Course?

I see that you can change the player to different languages, but can you convert the text to different languages when you publish?

Hi Kathleen,

Slide text would need to be translated by your or another individual - but you can use the Import/Export translation features to replace slide content easier. 

Thanks to everyone for all of the great ideas and processes on this thread!

I'm building a similar course (one SCO with more than one language option, using the one scene per language approach) and I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to get the button labels in the player to be the appropriate language within each scene.

I know this hasn't been a feature in the past but was wondering if maybe it's an option now.

Hi Jennifer,

There isn't a way to change the player buttons based on changes or triggers in the slide set up. I'll defer to the community for additional expertise in what they may have done in this scenario. 

Alright, I was afraid of that. Thanks for confirming, Ashley. Looks like I'm off to submit a feature request.

And if anyone has found a work around or alternative for this I'd be interested to hear about it.

So, it turns out that there is a way to use Javascript to have the Back, Next, and Submit buttons in the player change their text labels on a screen-by-screen basis. This allows those button to be localized in a multi-language, single SCO course. It's pretty easy to do, though as I understand it it may only work in HTML5, not Flash.

On whatever slide/screen you want to change the player's button labels:

1. Create a trigger to "Execute Javascript"
2. Use the desired Javascript (see the 3 scripts below) and replace INSERT HERE with the text you want to display on the button.
3. Set the trigger to fire when "Timeline starts"
4. Repeat this process on whatever screens you want to change the player's button text on. Copying and pasting the triggers saves a lot of time.
5. AFTER you publish the project there is one more thing you need to do to ensure that the course opens in HTML5. Open the published course folder.
6. Right click "imsmanifest.xml" and "Open with" Notepad or a similar program. Do not use Word.
7. Find href="index_lms.html" and change it to href="index_lms_html5.html"
8. Save the change. (File > Save)

Javascript for changing the Previous button's label:

di_y=document.getElementsByClassName("label prev"); // Find the elements
for(var i = 0; i < di_y.length; i++){
di_y[i].innerText="INSERT HERE"; // Change the content
}

Javascript for changing the Next button's label:

di_x=document.getElementsByClassName("label next"); // Find the elements
for(var i = 0; i < di_x.length; i++){
di_x[i].innerText="INSERT HERE"; // Change the content
}

Javascript for changing the Submit button's label:

di_z=document.getElementsByClassName("label submit"); // Find the elements
for(var i = 0; i < di_z.length; i++){
di_z[i].innerText="INSERT HERE"; // Change the content
}

I've attached an image of what the Javascript looks like for a screen where the Next and Back button labels have been changed to "SIG" and "ANT" respectively.

Thanks so much for the update and for the detailed info you've shared, Jennifer! 

And I just wanted to note for others who may not be aware, unfortunately, we are not able to provide support for JavaScript coding. Luckily, we have lots of community members who are happy to help!

And for those who'd like to review it, here is a sheet on JavaScript Best Practices. :)

Hello All - this is a great discussion thread. Thank you.

Steve Flowers in one of his posts suggested using "translation tools". My project requires translation into a dozen languages. What recommendations does the community have on which translation tools to use and how to use them?

Steve Flowers, I really like the idea of separating by language. Do you have a sample manifest file? Also has anyone out there had the course show the correct language based on the user language in the LMS. I have asked this to our LMS vendor who simply said they support access to everything that SCORM allows. Any thoughts? having a single published package in our system greatly reduces admin effort.

Hi all. Slightly different idea that I haven't seen anyone mention yet. I really want to be able to use online translation services to translate slide content on-the-fly. Think Instagram and Facebook captions ("see translation").

Has anyone done this?

Regards

Lee