WebsiteX5.info - The ultimate guide for Incomedia's WebsiteX5

The basics
To give your visitors the possibility to select a language WebsiteX5 uses an intro page. But before you enable multiple languages in WebsiteX5, it is necessary to have a basic understanding how this is implemented. You might also want to create and translate your projects for your different languages before you enable the intro page.

So read through this article before you make any changes!

How does it work?
When you click on the Intro page button the following dialog is displayed

You have to set the check box at 1, indicating that WebsiteX5 will generate an introduction page.

Next, at 2 you must specify an image file which you have prepared earlier to serve as the introduction page. This can be any image you have created using a graphics program. You can also use a flash animation.

At 3 you can select the languages flags you want to present to your user to select the required language. In the folder 'C:\Program Files\WebSite X5 Evolution\Flags' you can find a large selection of flag-images, but you can also create your own labels.

When you should publish your website the following changes happen:

First the page which normally would be named 'index.html' will be generated as 'home.html'
Second an Intro page is generated. The image you have specified under 2 will be used and under the image the flags or images you have specified under 3 are placed with links on them to the home pages of the separate websites. For example:

So the first flag has a hyperlink to http://www.yourdomain.com/home.html
The second flag to http://www.yourdomain.com/lang1/index.html
The third flag to http://www.yourdomain.com/lang2/index.html
The second flag to http://www.yourdomain.com/lang3/index.html

This is something to remember when you are publishing the translations of your site...

So what you have specified to be language 2 will be the the first alternative language and must be published under /lang1.

Creating the other languages
Now that we know where the other languages must be exported and what the relation with the intro page is we can start creating the websites for the different languages.

First open your project in your primary language (that what will be opened when you click on the first flag). When you already have it open click on the 'Save' button to make sure all your work is safe.

Next save a copy of your project for each of the other languages. Use the 'Save as' option of WebsiteX5.

Use a suffix to recognize the different projects (for example 'site.iwp' is copied to 'site English.iwp', 'site French.iwp', site German.iwp' ).


Translation
Now for the hard work. That's translating your websites. You're on your own here! There are a few things to think about.

• Don't forget to open the correct version of your website! This sounds obvious, I know. But a mistake is easily made (as I discovered...)
• In the General Settings you have to specify which language your site uses. This makes that texts which are generated by WebsiteX5 (for example in the webshop and in the reserved area) are in the right language. It also makes that the character encoding is right. This is especially important for those languages which use a different character set (for example Greek, Russian, Thai, etcetera).
• If your language isn't in the list you might have to do the translation yourself. This isnt' very difficult and on the forum you can find lots of information on this topic.

Publishing your translated site
After you have translated a website you want to publish it to your webserver.

Because your translated website is a copy of your primary site you can't just export it. The translation would overwrite the original! (Assuming that you have already exported your primary site successfully)

First Click on Export and select 'Export website on internet'. Your website is generated and the 'Web Export on Internet' dialog will show up.

In the right upper corner of this dialog you can specify the initial directory. This is the default for the directory on your webserver in which your website will be published.

For your first translated website just add the text '/lang1' after the value which already there from your primary website. This means the translated website will be published in a subdirectory '/lang1' under your primary website. (For the other languages use /lang2 and lang3).

You will see an error message telling you that it is impossible to view a list of files on the server. That's correct, because the folder doesn't exist yet!

To create it you have to go up one level. Press the first button in the toolbar.

Next press the second button in the toolbar to create a new folder...

You will be asked for the name of the new folder. The default value is 'lang2'.
For your first translation change this to 'lang1', for your second translation 'lang2' and for your third translation '/lang3'.

The folder is created and it will show up in the list of folders and files.

Double click on the new folder to open it. Now press the Start-button to export your translated website in this folder.

After your website is exported click on 'Save' to save the export settings in the project. From now on when you export your translated site, the correct folder will show up as the 'Initial directory' in the Export dialog...

Repeat these steps if you have more than one translation...

Testing it all...
Now you have exported your translated website you want to see how things work! This is the time to set the Intro page, but ONLY in your primary website.

Open the project for your primary website, go to the Advanced settings and click on the Intro page button.

As described you check the checkbox 1, tell WebsiteX5 which image you want to use for the intro page (2) and select which languages you want to have (3).

Export your primary website. Open a browser and check the result...

That's it, have fun!