osCmax 2.5 in English, Simplified and Traditional Chinese

[designbysue]

I need to set up a website with the 3 languages. I have not used osCmax (have set up several osCommerce sites) and I have never had a translated site. Can someone give me some insight on this. I see that there are translators but I can't find any links to where they are working nor information on how they work. Client will give me the translations and I will need to include artwork that is different than the English version so I am not sure a translator is the best solution. Can I set up one installation of osCmax but have 3 languages somehow? It almost seems I would need 3 installations but that would be very confusing. Could I use a translator on the check out pages but create different product pages for the 3 different languages. Any help appreciated as I am supposed to give them a proposal tomorrow and don't want to promise something I can't deliver.

Please help.

Thanks
Sue

[niallb]

I will be interested to see if this is possible as it is something I may need in the future as well.
Translation-wise, I wouldnt use software for this, way too unreliable. Similar problem with many translators, if they dont fully understand your product/niche they could easily give you a poor translation. I would suggest finding a local Chinese school, visiting them and talking to the teachers to see if any are willing/competent to help you. That way you can build personal contact.

On a separate note, how do you plan to SEO? I would imagine that as well as the 3 languages you will need to incorporate Pinyin.

[designbysue]

I will be interested to see if this is possible as it is something I may need in the future as well.
Translation-wise, I wouldnt use software for this, way too unreliable. Similar problem with many translators, if they dont fully understand your product/niche they could easily give you a poor translation. I would suggest finding a local Chinese school, visiting them and talking to the teachers to see if any are willing/competent to help you. That way you can build personal contact.

On a separate note, how do you plan to SEO? I would imagine that as well as the 3 languages you will need to incorporate Pinyin.

The client is ready willing and able to give me all three languages, so no problem there. I just need to know what this will take to make it happen (if it can) before I quote. And of course the client wants a quote now and the site done last week!

I will look at Pinyin as I don't know about that. thanks

[niallb]

Pinyin is the Romanized version of Chinese characters. It is used to teach pronunciation and is needed if you use a Qwerty keyboard to search for Chinese words, without this you need a tablet and pen.
For example, if I want to look for the Chinese character for 'Hello' I type 'Ni Hao' and then select the correct character that the computer offers me (assuming I have downloaded Chinese character recognisation software)

[designbysue]

Pinyin is the Romanized version of Chinese characters. It is used to teach pronunciation and is needed if you use a Qwerty keyboard to search for Chinese words, without this you need a tablet and pen.
For example, if I want to look for the Chinese character for 'Hello' I type 'Ni Hao' and then select the correct character that the computer offers me (assuming I have downloaded Chinese character recognisation software)

So is there a plug in for osCmax?

[niallb]

So is there a plug in for osCmax?

Not that I am aware of. I haven't used it yet for websites, just for emails, Word etc where I downloaded the language from Microsoft.
However, if you look at the bottom of this thread you will see that this has been brought up before, so it may be worthwhile digging around.
I did have another thought, even if you had this or could add a plugin, if you can't read the Chinese characters that your client provides you with there is no way for you to add these anyway as you won't know what they mean or how they are pronounced.
Do you have any knowledge of Chinese language? If not, you may be better getting a Chinese speaker to put this on your site for you.

[pgmarshall]

osCmax is multi-lingual out of the box ... however, I am not sure how it works with double character pictorial languages nor right to left written languages.

Regards.

[designbysue]

osCmax is multi-lingual out of the box ... however, I am not sure how it works with double character pictorial languages nor right to left written languages.
Regards.

Can you be more specific or point me to some documentation. I have seen translators that is not what I want - It seems that 3 "separate" carts or the equivalent are required - any help understanding will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Sue

[niallb]

Standard OscMax comes with English, Spanish & German already installed.
Cart-wise, customers can choose to see prices in their local currency (if you have enabled it in admin and regularly update it) so 1 shopping cart covers all.
Chinese is written left to right, same as English, so no problems there.

[niallb]

Good news Sue!
I've just put some Chinese characters onto one of my sites and it is perfectly readable.
All I did was create some text in Mandarin on a word document, copy it, then paste it into my product description box. You should be able to do this with the text your client is supplying you.
Is your client asking you to SEO the site as well? If so, I can offer some advice if you like