I have a website I am developing that will be deployed to several different clients. All of the functionality is the same and the vast majority of the language used is the same. However, some of the clients are in different industries so specific words and phrases within some pages need to changed based off of the company of the individual logged into the site. What is the best way to accomplish this?
In the past I have seen people use string database tables but that seems rather cumbersome. I thought about using localization but I don't want another developer to get confused because it isn't a change in spoken languages.
For this you can use something like a word list. I don't know whether word list is a well know concept or not but let me try to explain it to you.
You can add the information that distinguishes each login from other based on the companies in one table in your database and map it to corresponding words you wanna use for the respective English or default word in another table.
Now I am assuming that these words do not change very often. So what you can do is on application start, load it to a convenient memory data structure.
Now all the text you want to process will go through a word list processor which is basically a program code that identifies the group in which the login is and identifies the words to be replaced. Then it replaces those words based on the appropriate group and returns back the transformed text which you can display in the UI.
So here the advantage is, once the data is loaded into the memory data structure, you don't need to read the values from your DB.
Moreover, if there is any change in the word lists or if you want to give user the handle to change the words according to their preference, you can directly modify the memory data structure and then later refresh it in the DB asynchronously.
Also since the call for mapping is directly from the memory, its faster than DB calls.
And since its a program code, typically a method or something, its totally up to you which text to process and which to ignore.
This is a technique which we used in our application when we had a similar requirement. I hope this suggestion of solution to this problems helps !
Better alternatives and suggestions are always welcome since we would also want to improve our solution to this problem. Thanks.
We have a SaaS web application (multi-tenant) for creating online documentation (like a wiki).
Right now we only support English. We want to support other languages. We have all the interface controls set up to work, but we just need to figure out how to handle the actual user content.
It seems we are thinking about storing each page for each language separately.
So if they user create a page "how to reset password", and wants it in English, Dutch, and Spanish, we would store 3 different version of that page in the database.
I would love any advice on this!!
Using my own experience as examples - you have two choices really:
Each language is completely seperate
When a user wants to translate the contents of their documentation - they simply start a new, separate, complete version of the docs - and translate each page as they go. You could copy the existing docs as a start point but each language would in any case be independent. For example, this is how the docs for CakePHP are currently organized. Each language is effectively independent which allows the most flexibility. By flexibility I mean, for example, a page in one language doesn't have to exist in all the others - or with the same url/name.
The disadvantage here is keeping the versions in sync, or knowing when a translation needs updating (new changes to master language version).
Store translations as versions of the original
Alternatively you could store translations as versions of the master/main language. that is how we did it before. It made it easier to track what was being translated but at the cost of flexibility.
The disadvantage here is it's potentially too rigid - it may not be easy to add a page that is language specific, adding a new page in not-main-language could also cause problems
This is analogous to "we would store 3 different version of that page in the database".
Both of the mentioned approaches are quite valid, pick the one that solves the most problems whist giving the least issues :)
The best way to deal with documentation in multilanguage applications is to avoid it by embedding the documentation in your application, but not as entire pages, just as sentences..
Try to make the usage of your application as simple and intuitive as possible, include hints in the UI and for those who need more provide a forum split by languages.
Now, be sure that you have at least one person for each language that will report back any issues in the interface, so you could improve the texts or the design based on the input from them.
I am looking for a good way to translate an excisting Sitecore installation (English language is available) to 4 other languages (Russian , Chinese, Portuguese etc.) A dedicated translation company will translate all texts we deliver to the specified languages, but I'm curious on how other companies set this up. I thought about just exporting all Sitecore items which have to be translated using the Database language Export function in Sitecore and having the translation company edit those files. By just replacing the language tags in the XML we should be able to import this file as the newly created other language, however I'm affraid that this XML structure will be totally useless for a translation company and that they will drown in the codes inside this XML. How can we efficiently do this? Is there any other way then just giving those translation people access to the Sitecore environment and having them edit the languages here? Any Shared Source Module to achieve this? I still have alot of questions, is there anyone with some experience in achieving this?
Your primary options are either the language export/import functionality (as you mention), or a workflow-based solution that integrates with your translation agency's Translation Management System (if they have one -- hopefully they do).
The former is better for the initial translation. Typically, your agency should be able to handle translation of content within XML files. A good one can. If you create all needed language versions beforehand and copy english content into them, it will make the files easier to work with as they'll have tags for the new languages in them already. I've seen the creation of these layers done with Revolver (http://www.codeflood.net/revolver/) but could also be done with custom code or workflow.
For ongoing maintenance of your translated content, you'll probably want to integrate through workflow. Clay Tablet Technologies (http://www.clay-tablet.com/) have a middleware component w/ Sitecore integration that can make this easier, depending on your translation agency. You can also do your own workflow-based integration, with workflow commands that allow your users to send content for translation. Then you'd need some sort of listener that pulls the translated content back in, and continues the workflow.
Hope this helps!
You could also check out Lionbrdige (http://en-us.lionbridge.com/sitecore-and-lionbridge-announce-partnership-to-help-companies-thrive-across-borders.htm) as a solution.
From my own experience our customers normally use the Sitecore import/export function as a first step and then use Lionbridge or Clay Tablet as a service.
One important thing to think about with translations is the ongoing work. The initial translation is rather simple, but the second and so on might be more troublesome. What if different changes has been made in different languages. If local changes were made in the content for sat the french version you couldn´t just send the English version (second translate then) since you would also have to accomodate for the regional changes in the content.
Having worked with literally dozens of Sitecore clients worldwide — and helped get content to and from all the largest, and many smaller translation firms —, I can attest to the ineffeciency of trying to do translation in situ, that is in Sitecore. I liken it to asking an electrician to come over and rewire your house, but as they reach for their toolbox from the truck you tell them, "Nope — you need to do it by hand".
The very best way to manage anything more than a page or two of content for translation is to export it seamlessly. Deliver it to the LSP in a proper format (XML or XLIFF) and, when possible, auto import it to their TMS. Once translated, the content should then flow seamlessly back into Sitecore.
You can code this yourself — but the pitfalls are non-trivial just on the Sitecore side. (If you want intuitive UI's, scalability, and all the features that meet the needs of translation). Let alone the challenges of connecting to the systems LSP's use. (For example, who here knows the relative merits/risks of using SLD's Nexus connector versus their CTA for connecting to TMS?)
As kindly mentioned above, there are commecially available solutions that meet all these needs and more. So if you've got even a modest amount of content — and want to send that to any translation provider of your choice — I'd be happy to discuss how we can help.
The main issue with translation isn't technical at all, the XML export is a simple enough format and all agencies should be able to deal with it with no porblems. as others have suggested, maintenance after the initial translation is slightly more problematic but they also point to tools to achieve this.
The main issue we've found with translation is actually linguistic: how to achieve consistency of phrasing and that matches the original but is sufficiently adjusted to local requirements. Translation companies usually have software to aid this - libraries of of the phrases they translate etc. - working with an exported XML file doesn't provide the context of seeing content in situ. A particular item may be translated correctly and the site consistently, but as each page may be built from multiple items there can easily be conflicts between content as presented.
That makes working with the Sitecore backend (maybe with field security settings to limit ) or in the page editor (possibly pre filling fields with English values) a viable idea.
I know that some website are applications, but not all websites are applications (albeit maybe just a brochure viewing site)
Is there an in depth dummy use case for a brochure type site which would be beneficial to use.
When it comes to a corporate front facing website for example I suffer from feature blindness, although for an actual database driven application (for example a purchase order system) I feel within my element.
Is there any resources that can help me view "brochure" sites in the same light than I do with a pro bono database driven applications.
This is really useful thread. I have always battled with use cases for brochure sites, despite totally espousing the use of UML... I often feel caught between UX agency outputs & trying to ensure the whole Requirements Spec ties together, especially when agencies tend not to use UML.
There are several use cases that do apply beyond view menu / view brochure page - site functionality like print page, search site etc, sometimes accept a cookie to view specific content - but not much on classic brochure-ware. (All that ties well into user journeys / personas without having to restate the UX deliverables)
However, once using a system eg a CMS to create the website content - then I think the use cases get properly useful (as per comments above), as there are not only (usually) several actors inc the system, but also varying cases per content type so you can reference those UX deliverables without duplication and start filling in the gaps, plus tie up content strategy type deliverables (eg workflow & governance) by looking into the business processes and the system / user interactions. At the end of the modelling & specifications, you can get useful test matrices this way; plus class diagrams that relate objects to taxonomies (more agency deliverables to tie together in Functional Rqmts / Specs stage).
That's the way I'm trying to tackle it these days.
Use Cases can be used to model requirements of a system. System is a structure with input and output mappings. So if you have a static web page, you cannot interact with it in a other way than to view it.
As discussed in comments, if you think you did not understood the goals of stakeholders (what that word document sent by your boss ment...), you have to ask more and find them, use cases are a good technique for this.
In a cycle, discover actors (systems and roles interacting with the system you have to develop) and use cases (what needs of those actors the developed system should ssatisfy). Every time you find an actor, you may ask what other needs (possible use cases) he has and when you find an use case, you should ask who will participate in it and who is interested in it (who is the next actor and who are the stakeholders). Then you can define the scope boundaries and prioritize...
At my company we're about to build a new site using ASP.NET MVC. My boss (marketing guy) would like to know some more about the technology so I've tried to find a really good, simple and pedagogical presentation of the MVC concept without any luck. Most of them require quite a lot of basic knowledge in programming.
Any suggestions for a good video, slides or other?
Craig Strong has a pretty nice article about MVC in general and how to explain its benefits to business. Check it out here: Updated link.
Define MVC in layman’s terms
Remember you’re technically minded and close to the code. MVC to you
is as clear as day, but saying to the business ‘Model, View,
Contoller’ could give them the impression that you are suffering from
some form tourette syndrome. MVC won’t mean much to the business even
after you define them in relation to the code. To get the business to
understand why this is the answer and least of all what it is, can be
more of a task than expected in my experience. Even some fellow
developers have difficulty understanding this on occasion.
To get the listener to understand what MVC is and why it works what I
have tried in the pass is to apply MVC to a different industries where
the listeners have had more involvement. An example that has worked
for me in the past in a comparison to the property or even the
vehicles. Most people have had dealing’s with builders, carpenters,
plumbers, electricians or have watched the flood of property shows on
the TV. This experience is a good platform to use and to explain why
separation such as MVC works. I know you’re probably thinking that
won’t work as it’s not the same as in software, but remember you’re
not trying to train the business to become developers or have an in
depth understanding of MVC, simply explaining to them that separation
in production is required and that’s what an MVC structure offers.
To give an example of how you could describe this I have very briefly
explained how separation works in property. Keep in mind this is
focused on using the system not developing which could be a completely
different angle of explanation.
View
The view in MVC is the presentation layer. This is what the end user
of a product will see and interact with. A system can have multiple
views of all different types ranging from command line output to
rendered HTML. The view doesn’t consist of business logic in most
clear designs. The interface is fit for purpose and is the area of
interaction. Therefore you could simply output HTML for consumers to
interact with or output SOAP/XML for businesses to interact with. Both
use the same business logic behind the system otherwise known as the
models and controllers.
In the world of property you could think of the view as the interior
of a property or the outer layer of a property that the inhabitants
interact with. The interior can be customised for purpose and the same
property can have many different types of tenants. For example a
property of a particular design could contain residential dwellings.
The same internal space could easily be used as office space, where
although in the same property has a different purpose. However the
property structure is the same. Therefore the environment in which the
users interact does not interfere with the structure of the building.
Controllers
The controller is where the magic happens and defines the business
application logic. This could be where the user has sent a response
from the view, then this response is used to process the internal
workings of the request and processes the response back to the user.
Taking a typical response where a user has requested to buy a book.
The controller has the user id, payment details, shipping address and
item choice. These elements are then processed through the business
logic to complete a purchase. The data is passed through the system
into the model layer and eventually after the entire request satisfies
the business definitions, the order is constructed and the user
receives their item.
If we compare this to a property, we could compare the ordering of a
book online to turning on a light switch. A tenant will flick the
switch to on just like ordering a book. The switch itself is an
element in the view layer which sends the request to the controller
just like clicking a checkout button on a web site. The business logic
in this case is what the electrician installed and are embedded within
the property designs. The switch is flicked, which completes the
circuit. Electricity runs through all the wires including the fuse box
straight through to the light bulb. Just like the user receiving a
book, in this case the tenant receives light. The whole process behind
the scenes involving the electricity cabling is not visible to the the
tenant. They simply interact with the switch within the space and from
there the controller handles the request.
Models
The models in MVC are the bottom most layer and handle the core logic
of the system. In most cases this could be seen as the layer that
interacts with the data source. In systems using MVC, the controller
will pass information to the model in order to store and retrieve
data. Following on from the example above controller definition, this
is where the order details are stored. Additional data such as stock
levels, physical location of product of the book amongst many things
are all stored here. If that was the last book in stock ordered, the
next request for this item may check if it’s available and disallow
the order as the item is no longer available.
Sticking with our example of turning on a light switch, this level in
our structure could be the electricity supply. When the tenant flicks
the switch, the internal circuit must request electricity to power the
request which is similar when the user requested data from the
database, as in data is needed to process a request. If the dwelling
isn’t connected to an electric supply, it cannot complete the process.
Business benefits from using MVC
After you get the message across explaining what MVC is, you will then
have to see what benefits can be obtained from it. I’m not going to go
into a huge amount of detail here are I’m sure you can apply benefits
more accurately which are directly related to you actual situation. To
list just some of the common benefits of an MVC based system here are
a few examples:
Different skill levels can work on different system levels. For example designers can work on the interface (View) with very little
development knowledge and developers can work on the business logic
(Controller) with very little concern for the design level. Then they
simply integrate together on completion.
As a result of the above separation projects can be managed easier and quicker. The designer can start the interfaces before the
developer and vice versa. This development process can be parallel as
opposed to being sequential therefore reducing development time.
Easy to have multiple view types using the same business logic.
Clear route through the system. You clearly know where there different levels of the system are. With a clear route of the system,
logic can be shared and improved. This has added security benefits as
you clearly know the permitted route from the data to the user and can
have clear security checks along the route.
Each layer is responsible for itself. (Relates to point 1) This means that you can have clean file structure which can be maintained
and managed much easier and quicker than a tightly couple system where
you may have lots of duplicate logic.
Having a clear structure means development will be more transparent which should result in reduced development time,
maintenance problems and release cycles if applied properly.
M-V-C Think of it as:
"Order Details (including Customer & Employee info)", "HTML/ASP Form (to display the OrderDetails)" and "Order details service class (having methods to SaveOrderDetails, GetOrderDetails etc.).
The Model (Data Class e.g. OrderDetails)
The data you want to Display
The Controller (Service class)
Knows about the Model (Order Details)
Has methods to manage the Model
And as such can be unit tested Its Single Responsibility is to manage the OrderDetails CRUD operations.
It knows NOTHING about the View
The View (ASP Page)
Displays the Model (OrderDetail's ViewData).
It has to know about the Model's structure so it can correctly display the data to the users on screen.
The View's structure (style, layout, HTML etc., locale) can be changed at anytime without it changing anything in the application's functionality.
And as such, many Views can display the same Model in many different ways.
In multi-tenant web applications, Customer specific Views can be stored in a database table and displayed based on Customer information
You have to explain the benefits of ASP.NET MVC, not the features
You have control over your URLs -- that means SEO for the site will be better -- that means your site will be higher in google
The code is cleaner, which means that it's easier to change, which means that you can add features faster
etc.
How do you save money, make money, reduce risk? That's what your boss wants to know.
Imagine a control room in a factory, the model is the machine itself, the monitoring equipment is the view and the instrument panel is the controller. You could have several different control rooms for the same machine and changes in the controls in one control room would reflect on the monitors in all control rooms.
The point is that you should only model once and then view or control however is most convenient.
The model is the data access layer, which can just be a wrapper for a few simple queries to an ORM that manages the data entity relationships itself. It handles communication to the data source, retrieves data and usually organizes it into objects defined in your application.
The views are just html files with bits of html and css with some templating engine (smarty, mako, etc) code to display the data passed to it the way you want.
The controller puts it all together. Requests made to your page will be routed to a controller (class) and an action (method) within the controller. Just like any other application, the action will do what's requested of it, but it's still part of the controller.
So, the controller uses the model to query data (users, content, etc), then passes the data to a view to be rendered and displayed the way you want.
I wouldn't try to explain the technology to him, I'd try to explain what the MVC architectural principle is all about.
MVC was designed to separate concerns. Plain and simple. Explain to him that when you build anything that what you're building can be classified in two different categories: what the business need is (the domain), and everything else.
MVC separates the Domain from the everything else by introducing layers to separate out the concerns. M is for Model, which is your domain. V is for View, which is the visible part to him, what he sees. C is for Controller, the part that controls what is going on in between the Domain and the View.
The marketing guy would just be interested in the "V" part, the View. Depending on how you design things, the View would just be basic HTML/CSS "templates" that the marketing person could modify. Technically without breaking anything.
Ideally the Model (database) and Controller (logic) shouldn't care if the View (presentation) is XML, HTML, text, etc. The marketing person shouldn't care what the Model and Controller do, except for requesting additional functionality.
Going further with the "ideal", you should technically be able to replace ASP with PHP, Java, Ruby, etc as the Controller without touching the Model or View.
You can very easily do this, that is if you understand marking speak. I dont but I imagine it would go something like this...
This should be use. MVC (if done right) will allow you to decouple the UI from the data (model) and control of the UI (controler). This will allow the UI to be more flexible which will in turn allow to better market it self faster.
To a marketing guy, perhaps the best way to explain the reason for ASP.Net MVC is the ability to broaden your product's reach.
By using MVC, the code is already separated in a fashion that will let you more easily build an interface that feels natural on a desktop, and then the different interface that caters to a general mobile device user, and a still-slightly-different interface that caters to an iPhone user, without risking the backend code getting out of sync and introducing subtle and company-harming bugs. And, if there's a smart client desktop app that could be a product... it, too, can rest on the same codebase.
The Model is "how things work inside the box". The Controller is "what you can touch on the outside of the box" and the view is "what comes out of the box"...
The most important thing for your marketing guy is money, budget, TCO ...
When you don't use MVC you usually mix design, application logic etc. alltogether.
Programmer then must know html design, programming etc... That could mean you need powerful professional to do it all.
if you use MVC, everything is divided into "separate parts". Html coder can prepare html layer, programmer only works with application logic etc...
MVC brings better granularity and everybody can focus on what he or she can do the best!
Listen, for example xhtml validity and css cleanliness is so hard that there is a lot of people who focuses only on this while lot of browsers and platforms compatibility on mind.
Usually one person is NOT the best asp.net programmer, xhtml coder in one ;-)
This is a pretty simple one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-view-controller#Pattern_description
The best way I can thing of is that the model is the data representation, the view is the presentation to the user and the controller is what collects user interaction that changes the model.
The important word in the title of the manager in this case is "marketing." He is a Marketing manager. The concerns one has as a marketing manager have to do with strategy and tactics. These two are not the same thing. Strategy is the big picture word that embraces among other things how a company conceptually addresses customer needs and how the company differentiates itself from its competition. Strategy is typically not what software can portray to a user. Tactics, on the other hand, are the direct methods or approaches that a company takes in winning the business of the customer. Tactics tend to change far more frequently than strategies, and it is likely that the marketing manager, when he asks what advantage MVC may give him, is really asking, "How rapidly can you change whatever it is that you create into something that conforms to new realities in the way we have to deal with customers." In other words, how quickly can you change an offer of "buy 1 and get 1 free" into "buy 2 on Friday and get 1 on the following Tuesday if it is raining in Albany."
Marketing management is about results measured in dollars and cents, not finery and nuanced explanations that are littered with conceptual words lacking any real specificity. Everything a programmer may say might make sense to himself, but a marketing manager needs to know the real likelihood of rapid response to changing customer perceptions or rapid implementation to a different approach to selling to the same customers. He needs to know if it will cost more than an existing method because if he sells $1 million more in product while spending $1.25 million in software development, he will probably lose his job.
So, in short, he is looking for flexibility and cost-effectiveness. He needs software that be adapted to changing conditions quickly, just as he changes his pitch first one way and then another to a difficult-to-persuade prospective customer, and he needs to know that he won't have to be liable for a huge price tag for that flexibility.
Frankly, I don't think that you would be able to deliver on such promises if they were made because in spite of all the advantages of MVC from a development point of view, we are still talking about software here, and as we all know, software is a rigid, demanding taskmaster that takes it own sweet time to mature to the point of trustworthiness and to be rid of its bugs. We as programmers are always in search of the holy grail of software reusability, and while we flail about trying one thing and then another (MVC, MVP, MVVM, and whatever else someone may conceive), the rest of the world is simply asking for something that works. So the best of luck to you. I hope you are able to win your case.