Simple Website Translation Engine

 

 

Web Lite Solutions Corp.

Frequently Asked Questions

General Questions

What is SWeTE?
SWeTE is a website translation engine that allows you to convert your website into multiple languages and maintain it without the usual hassles involved with multilingual websites. It provides automatic language preference detection for your users, a simple language selector widget, automatic machine translation, the ability to translate pages yourself with a simple translation form, and optional professional human translation services.
Which languages does SWeTE support?
SWetE currently supports Bulgarian, Danish, Greek, Spanish, French, Croatian, Japanese, Dutch, Polish, Romanian, Swedish, Czech, German, English, Finnish, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, and Chinese.
I only want to include one extra language on my site. Is that OK?
SWeTE allows you to select which languages you want to include on your website. Only the languages that you select will be included in your language selector menu.
What kind of translation does SWeTE provide?
SWeTE provides a free automatic machine translation by default. It also allows you to improve, replace, or add to the machine translation with your own translation. You can also have a professional translator translate your content using SWeTE's simple translation form.
How is SWeTE different than machine translation services like World Lingo, Google Translate, and Babelfish?
  1. Do it yourself.  SWeTE allows you to provide your own translations, instead of , or in addition to the default machine translation.
  2. Professional Human Translation.  SWeTE connects you to professional human translators to translate important sections of your website.
  3. Users Never Leave Your Site.  Unlike machine translation services, SWeTE seamlessly integrates with your website so that your users never have to leave your site to see a translated version.   With other machine translation services, your users are taken to a completely different website with a long, ugly URL to see a translated version of your site. With SWeTE, the URL for your french version is the same as the URL for your English version. Your users just choose which language they prefer.
  4. You have full control.  SWeTE puts you in the driver seat when it comes to approving translations that will appear on your site. Nothing appears on your website unless you want it to.
How is SWeTE different than professional translation services?

Most professional translation services will translate your website by making a complete copy of all of the files and asking you to link to this new translated version. Depending on the technology you are using on your website, this may be an expensive and difficult process. The most difficult part, however, is managing updates to your website over time. When you make changes to the original website, you'll also need to change the translations. This can be cumbersome. If your website is updated frequently it is usually necessary to upgrade your website to some sort of complex multilingual content management system to help you manage your translations. This can be expensive, time-consuming, and difficult.

SWeTE, on the other hand, is a tool that makes the management of multiple languages simple. You don't need to install any software on your web server, and you don't need to make multiple copies of your website. It provides you with an automatic machine translation if you wish to use it, but more importantly, it allows you to provide your own translations to override or complement the machine translations.

When changes are made to your original website, SWeTE detects these changes and can be set up to notify you by email. It clearly marks the changed sections so that you or your translator can easily update the translations.

With SWeTE you also don't have to worry about the complexities of navigation between your multiple languages. SWeTE automatically detects your users' language settings and shows them the appropriate version. Chinese users will see the Chinese version, French users see the French version. Users can also manually change their language preference by selecting the appropriate translation from the language selector menu on your website.

In fact, SWeTE can be used to make like easier for your translator. If your website is already multilingual, you can install SWeTE and use it to manage your translations instead of your current system. Have your professional translator use SWeTE's simple translation form for future translations. The savings are yours to be had.

How do users select their preferred language?

SWeTE provides automatic language preference detection so that users will automatically see your website in the translation of their choice (if you have chosen to provide a translation). If no such translation has been made, then users will see your original translation.

SWeTE includes a language selector menu also that allows users to manually change their language preferences.

Installation Questions

How do I install SWeTE?
After you sign up, you'll receive a tiny snippet of HTML code to paste into your webpages. Add this snippet to your website to automatically convert it into your choice of languages. You can modify any of the translations yourself at any time; or you can submit important sections for professional human translation.
What are SWeTE's requirements?

SWeTE will work in any website regardless of the technology used. It doesn't matter whether your website uses static HTML pages, PHP, ASP, JSP, Cold Fusion, .NET, Java servlets, or any other website technology.

Which browsers are supported?
All modern browsers should work with SWeTE. This includes, but is not limited to Internet Explorer 6+, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, Opera, IPhone, or mobile web browsers.
Do I need to install any software onto my website?
No. You simply copy and paste a snippet of HTML into your webpages. You don't have to install any special software onto your webserver.
My website doesn't support any scripts like PHP or ASP. Will SWeTE still work on my website?
Yes. SWeTE doesn't require any special server technologies in order to work.
I use PHP and MySQL for my website. Will SWeTE work for me?
Yes. SWeTE will work with any server-side technology and doesn't require any special server technologies in order to work.
I use ASP and SQL Server for my website. Will SWeTE work for me?
Yes. SWeTE will work with any server-side technology and doesn't require any special server technologies in order to work.
I use JSP for my website. Will SWeTE work for me?
Yes. SWeTE will work with any server-side technology and doesn't require any special server technologies in order to work.
I use a complex content management system for my website. Will SWeTE work for me?
Yes. Simply copy and paste the SWeTE HTML snippet into your main template where you want the language selector to appear, and your website will be transformed into a multilingual website.
Will SWeTE work with blogs?
Yes. SWeTE will work perfectly with blogs. Simply add the SWeTE HTML snippet into your blog's template where you want the language selector to appear, and your blog will be transformed into a multilingual blog.
Will SWeTE work with shopping carts?
Yes. SWeTE will work perfectly with shopping carts. Simply add the SWeTE HTML snippet into your cart's template where you want the language selector to appear, and your site will be transformed into a multilingual shopping cart.
How do I uninstall SWeTE?
Simply remove the SWeTE HTML snippet from your webpages.

Translation Questions

Do I have to use the machine translator?
No. You have the flexibility to perform the translations yourself or have your content professionally translated using SWeTE's simple translation form and approval workflow system.
How does the approval workflow work?
With SWeTE, you have the option to require approval before translations appear on your website. You also have the option to receive email notifications when content is changed or when a translation has been submitted. When you receive notification that a transolation has been submitted, you will be given the option to approve the translation. Once the translation is approved, it will appear on your website.
How do I manage my translations?

SWeTE provides a number of tools to help you to easily manage your translations. These include:

  • Account Management Application. You can log in to change your site settings, update your translations, and manage all other aspects of your website translations.
  • Translation Control Panel. We provide you with a button that you can add to your browser toolbar that allows you to access the translation control panel for your webpages. All you have to do to manage a page's translations is to navigate to the page in your web browser, and click the "Translation Control Panel" button on your toolbar.
  • Approve/Retract Translation. With the translation control panel, you can approve or retract a translation by clicking a button.
  • Translate Page. With the translation control panel you can translate any of your webpages using the SWeTE translation form. This form shows the original content on the left of the page and provides you with a form to edit the translation on the right.
  • Submit for Translation. The translation control panel includes a "Submit for Translation" button to submit your webpage for professional translation.
  • Translator Permissions. Using the account management application, you can assign other users to be able to translate your web pages. If you have chosen to require approval, then these translations won't be public until you approve them.
  • Notifications. The account management application allows you to enable email notifications when changes are made to your website's content. This allows you to stay on top of changes.
I only want a couple of key sections to be professionally translated. The rest I can translate myself or use the machine translation. Is this possible with SWeTE?
Yes. SWeTE allows you to flag entire pages or only sections of pages for translation. You can then submit the page for translation and only the flagged sections will be translated.
Does SWeTE include a translation memory feature?
Yes. SWeTE records all translations that you ever make. If you need to translate a similar section, you can click the "translation memory" button to see translations that you have already completed, and adapt them.
Can I use SWeTE with my existing professional translation service?
Yes. SWeTE is a revolutionary tool that can benefit translators and website owners alike. Just have your translator sign up for an account on SWeTE and you can give them translation permissions on your site.

Hosting Questions

Where are the translations hosted?

Translations are hosted on Web Lite's secure web servers. They are seamlessly incorporated in your website using sophisticated Web 2.0 techniques. Your users will have no idea that the translations are not hosted on your servers as your webpage URLs do not change.

Allowing Web Lite to host your translations makes sense as managing multilingual content can be complex. Let the specialists deal with the mundane details of multilingual content management, so you can focus on your content.

Will my users be aware that my translations are hosted on your servers?
No. Your users will not be aware that the translations are hosted on our servers because the translations are seamlessly integrated into your website. Your users will never leave your site, unlike other machine translation services.
What happens if Web Lite's servers go down?
Web Lite's servers are managed in a secure data center with redundancy and hot backups to ensure minimal down-time. If the servers do happen to be down, your users will see your default content instead of the translation. There will be no ugly error messages.