ccwf
Soulless Minion of Orthodoxy
Registered: 02-2004
Location: Malibu
Posts: 561
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 multilingual account creation form
As noted by a few of us that operate Runboards that aren't English-only, the English-only Runboard account creation form can be a very significant impediment to signing up new members. Realizing that this is something that can be done without changing Runboard software, I've started a volunteer, Runboard community to create multilingual account creation forms.
[My apologies to those who've already seen my posts on this topic, but I felt this deserved its own topic. Before, it was just a few posts in response to a Q&A topic with a generic subject line, where it wasn't very visible.]
To use the multilingual account creation forms on your board, customize the language set and change the misc_regacc string to something like the following (once a few translated versions are done): <a href="http://www.web-i18n.net/Runboard/create_user.html">Register for a free account</a> | Log in: %4 (%5), %6 (%7) When new wannabe members click on that link, the server will then look at the user's language preferences (set in the browser's options), compare them with the translated account creation pages available, and serve up the best matching translation. Users can also click on the little flags to request a specific translated version.
Example: A user's browser has been configured to preferentially request pages in Austrian German, then generic German, and finally English. No Austrian German version of the account creation page exists, but a partially translated generic German one is available. So that's what the user will get.
The localized account creation forms are intended to look like the stock, English-only forms except they (obviously) contain translated text. The layout I've created displays each label and note twice: one set will stay in English with Runboard's original language, and one set will hold the translated text.
The layout only displays the Terms of Service in English. Since the TOS is a contract, I thought it was best to just leave it as-is, untranslated. I can be pursuaded to change this, however, and make space for a translated TOS.
Some unimportant text like the "Welcome to Runboard!" is not duplicated. Only the translated version is shown for such text.
How to contribute: Donate translations, please.  See the template for the text to be translated.
Firlefanz has already offered to do a German translation, and a Chinese/Japanese/Korean Drama board member has offered to do an Armenian translation.
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2/21/2005, 10:47 pm
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ccwf
Soulless Minion of Orthodoxy
Registered: 02-2004
Location: Malibu
Posts: 561
Karma: 29 (+31/-2)
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Re: multilingual account creation form
Currently, if the user's browser has English as the primary language, instead of seeing a page with all the text in English twice, they'll instead get a framed version of Runboard's account creation page. It's shown in a frame so that the flag images allowing users to choose a language explicitly will still be available.
I'm also thinking of allowing board owners to specify a CSS stylesheet (via a query parameter) for use with the multilingual account creation forms so that board owners can make those pages match the look of their boards. However, this feature will not work with the framed, English-only, stock Runboard account creation form. If I get Thor's OK, I'll also create an English version of the account creation page that will allow a custom stylesheet.
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2/21/2005, 10:53 pm
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ccwf
Soulless Minion of Orthodoxy
Registered: 02-2004
Location: Malibu
Posts: 561
Karma: 29 (+31/-2)
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Re: multilingual account creation form
More Technical Notes
If you look at the forms I've created, you'll see that they submit the new user's information directly to Runboard. The information never goes to my company's server, where I'm hosting these translated account creation pages.
Users who do not fill out all the information correctly will get Runboard's English-only account creation form listing the errors. Users will then need to hit the back button on their browsers to go back to the translated version. I know that's not especially elegant; but it's the best that can be done without having all the account creation information submitted and relayed through my company's server, which I do not want to do for reasons of privacy.
(Probably should add a note to the translated versions telling users to hit the back button on their browsers in case of any errors.)
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2/21/2005, 11:11 pm
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ccwf
Soulless Minion of Orthodoxy
Registered: 02-2004
Location: Malibu
Posts: 561
Karma: 29 (+31/-2)
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multilingual account creation form: more notes
These are mostly notes for myself:
* Add some language and a link to reach me so that users can report problems to me about the translated forms.
* If they wish, add credits to the localized pages listing the volunteers who help with those pages, linking to their boards, and so forth.
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2/21/2005, 11:23 pm
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