Here are some facts about our multi-lingual support as of June 2010.
1) Sophio has support for multi-lingual b2c stores.
2) Sophio does not provide translations for customers in any foreign language, but does support rendering special characters, currency symbols, date formatting, etc.
3) Sophio will provide clients with a collection of language translation files in XML format that covers many (not all) of the system messages so that the system can display alternate languages. The client will edit this file in 'notepad' or some 'text editor', save it without disrupting the layout and format, and send it back to us, or upload via our file manager or their FTP software to their site's template folder.
4) As the system expands and grows, Sophio will update the language table so that all sites in many languages will be able to translate words like 'go', 'search', 'shopping cart', etc. This will require merchants to continue to manage their store in their own languages.
5) Clients should expect this to be an evolutionary process, meaning that it is ongoing and requires additional maintenance on their part. We have only English-speaking employees at this time.
6) Sophio charges extra for multi-lingual stores because of how the feature was originally implemented. The second or third language is implemented as an additional store/domain, or sub-domain and therefore requires a setup fee, a design fee, and a monthly support fee. The fees for a 2nd or 3rd store that is language-based costs more because there is more support required as a result of the back-and-forth aspect of 'translation'.
7) Sophio is working on an internal update to the content management system to make it possible for a single store to support many languages so that the merchant can easily translate the many system labels and messages on their own and will not have to have many stores to achieve a truly multi-lingual user experience.
8) Sophio needs the client to do the translations of all content of each page of the site. A Sophio store is primarily two pages--a home page and master template page. Links that are added to the site include other pages such as privacy, terms, and returns. Each file is an HTML template that can be edited by the client from within the control panel.
9) The system labels and messages are stored in a collection of XML files as mentioned above. The client can access these files in the template folder along with the home page, template page, and the rest of the pages translated.
10) Sophio Support will guide the client through translating pages that are not obvious at the time of implementation. It is not obvious to us what should or should not be translated.
11) Sophio recommends adding the Google Translate button on all multi-lingual sites as a 'backup' and temporary plan to actually translating pages. For access to this, click here.
