{"id":29959,"date":"2021-02-10T17:37:39","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T17:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/?p=29959"},"modified":"2021-02-10T18:59:45","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T18:59:45","slug":"best-practices-for-building-multilingual-websites-using-kentico-xperience-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/2021\/02\/10\/best-practices-for-building-multilingual-websites-using-kentico-xperience-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Practices for Building Multilingual Website Using the New Kentico-Xperience Platform \u2013 Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the first of a two part blog series about website localization using the new Xperience (Kentico) platform. In this blog, I will cover some of the aspects you need to consider when preparing your content for localization. In my second blog in the series, I will cover topics related to using the export\/import features within the Xperience platform. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Enabling cultures for your Xperience website<\/span><\/h2>\n

One of the first things you need to do in the Xperience platform is to enable the \u201cCultures\u201d you want your website localized for. This is also known as \u201clocales\u201d in some other website content management systems or platforms. This will allow you to localize (translate) your website into different languages.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To enable “Cultures” follow these steps:<\/h2>\n
    \n
  1. Open Configuration<\/strong> > Sites<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
  2. Edit<\/strong> your site by clicking on the pencil icon.<\/li>\n
  3. Click on Cultures<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
  4. Click on Add cultures<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
  5. Check all the cultures<\/strong> you need and finally click on Select<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
  6. This will return you back to the Cultures tab and will show all the Cultures enabled for your website. For example, if I want to localize my English (US) website into Spanish (Spain), it will look like the following:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"Enable<\/p>\n

    English (US) culture is the default, but you can change this by clicking on the General tab and changing the Default content culture<\/strong> field:<\/p>\n

    \"Default<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Define fields that require translation<\/h2>\n

    Xperience Platform allows you to specify which fields can be localized. In other words, you can define clearly what you want to be localized and what you do not want. This process can take time, but it is especially important because it ensures you avoid having a translation service to translate extra content that is not needed.\u00a0 Also, this helps a lot to mitigate issues related to fields that have values that need to remain in English, or simply that correspond to content that does not require translation (like image URLs or size parameters).<\/p>\n

    To define which fields require translation, you have to follow the next steps:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Open Development<\/strong> > Page types<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
    2. Edit<\/strong> a given page type by clicking on the pencil icon.<\/li>\n
    3. Click on Fields<\/strong> item on the left side menu.<\/li>\n
    4. Click on the field that you need to change.<\/li>\n
    5. Under the General section, check\/uncheck the Translate field<\/strong> checkbox, depending if you need that field to allow translation or not.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \"Translate<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Finally click on the Save<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

         <\/p>\n

        Conclusion<\/h4>\n

        In this first part, we covered the main steps you need to set up your website before starting any localization project. In my next blog, I will cover how to export\/import content using manual translation and translation services.<\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

        References<\/h4>\n