Identifying Content to Translate identifying-content-to-translate

Translation rules identify the content to translate for pages, components, and assets that are included in, or excluded from, translation projects. When a page or asset is being translated, AEM extracts this content so that it can be sent to the translation service.

Pages and assets are represented as nodes in the JCR repository. The content that is extracted is one or more property values of the nodes. The translation rules identify the properties that contain the content to extract.

Translation rules are expressed in XML format and stored in these possible locations:

The file applies to all translation projects.

Rules include the following information:

For example, you can create a rule that translates the content that authors add to all AEM foundation Text components on your pages. The rule can identify the /content node and the text property for the foundation/components/text component.

There is a console that has been added for configuring translation rules. The definitions in the UI will populate the file for you.

For an overview of the content translation features in AEM, see Translating Content for Multilingual Sites.

Rule Syntax for Pages, Components, and Assets rule-syntax-for-pages-components-and-assets

A rule is a node element with one or more child property elements and zero or more child node elements:

<node path="content path">
          <property name="property name" [translate="false"]/>
          <node resourceType="component path" >
               <property name="property name" [translate="false"]/>
          </node>
</node>

Each of these node elements has the following characteristics:

The following example rule causes the content of all text properties to be translated for all pages below the /content node. The rule is effective for any component that stores content in a text property, such as the foundation Text component and the foundation Image component.

<node path="/content">
          <property name="text"/>
</node>

The following example translates the content of all text properties, and also translates other properties of the foundation Image component. If other components have same-named properties, the rule does not apply to them.

<node path="/content">
      <property name="text"/>
      <node resourceType="foundation/components/textimage">
         <property name="image/alt"/>
         <property name="image/jcr:description"/>
         <property name="image/jcr:title"/>
      </node>
</node>

Rule Syntax for Extracting Assets from Pages rule-syntax-for-extracting-assets-from-pages

Use the following rule syntax to include assets that are embedded in or referenced from components:

<assetNode resourceType="path to component" assetReferenceAttribute="property that stores asset"/>

Each assetNode element has the following characteristics:

The following example extracts images from the foundation Image component:

<assetNode resourceType="foundation/components/image" assetReferenceAttribute="fileReference"/>

Overriding Rules overriding-rules

The translation_rules.xml file consists of a nodelist element with several child node elements. AEM reads the node list from top to bottom. When multiple rules target the same node, the rule that is lower in the file is used. For example, the following rules cause all content in text properties to be translated except for the /content/mysite/en branch of pages:

<nodelist>
     <node path="/content">
           <property name="text" />
     </node>
     <node path="/content/mysite/en">
          <property name="text" translate="false" />
     </node>
<nodelist>

Filtering Properties filtering-properties

You can filter nodes that have a specific property by using a filter element.

For example, the following rules cause all content in text properties to be translated except for the nodes that have the property draft set to true.

<nodelist>
    <node path="/content">
     <filter>
   <node containsProperty="draft" propertyValue="true" />
     </filter>
        <property name="text" />
    </node>
<nodelist>

Translation Rules UI translation-rules-ui

A console is also available for configuring translation rules.

To access it:

From here, you can Add Context. This lets you add a path.

Then you need to select your context and then click Edit. This opens the Translation Rules Editor.

There are 4 attributes that you can change via the UI: isDeep, inherit, translate and updateDestinationLanguage.

isDeep This attrbute is applicable on node filters and is true by default. It checks if the node (or its ancestors) contains that property with the specified property value in the filter. If false, it only checks at the current node.

For example, child nodes are getting added into a translation job even when the parent node is having property draftOnly set to true to flag draft content. Here isDeep comes into play and checks if the parent nodes have property draftOnly as true and excludes those child nodes.

In the Editor, you can check/uncheck Is Deep in the Filters tab.

Here is an example of the resulting xml when Is Deep is unchecked in the UI:

 <filter>
    <node containsProperty="draftOnly" isDeep="false" propertyValue="true"/>
</filter>

inherit This is applicable on properties. By default every property is inherited, but if you want some property to not get inherited on the child, then you can mark that property to be false so that it gets applied only on that specific node.

In the UI, you can check/uncheck Inherit in the Properties tab.

translate The translate attribute is used simply to specify whether or not to translate a property.

In the UI, you can check/uncheck Translate in the Properties tab.

updateDestinationLanguage This attribute is used for properties that do not have text but language codes, for example, jcr:language. The user is not translating text but the language locale from source to destination. Such properties are not sent for translation.

In the UI, you can check/uncheck Translate in the Properties tab, but for the specific properties that have language codes as value.

To help clarify the difference between updateDestinationLanguage and translate, here is a simple example of a context with only two rules:

The result in the xml will look like this:

<property inherit="true" name="text" translate="true" updateDestinationLanguage="false"/>
<property inherit="true" name="jcr:language" translate="false" updateDestinationLanguage="true"/>

Editing the Rules File Manually editing-the-rules-file-manually

The translation_rules.xml file that is installed with AEM contains a default set of translation rules. You can edit the file to support the requirements of your translation projects. For example, you can add rules so that the content of your custom components are translated.

If you edit the translation_rules.xml file, keep a backup copy in a content package. Installing AEM service packs or reinstalling certain AEM packages can replace the current translation_rules.xml file with the original. To restore your rules in this situation, you can install the package that contains your backup copy.

Example Translation Rules File example-translation-rules-file

<nodelist>
    <!-- translation rules for Geometrixx Demo site (example) -->
    <node path="/content/geometrixx">
        <!-- list all node properties that should be translated -->
        <property name="jcr:title" /> <!-- translation workflows running on content saved in /content/geometrixx, will extract jcr:title values independent of the component. -->
        <property name="jcr:description" />
        <node resourceType ="foundation/components/image"> <!-- translation workflows running on content saved in /content/geometrixx, will extract alternateText values only for Image component. -->
            <property name="alternateText"/>
        </node>
        <node resourceType ="geometrixx/components/title">
            <property name="richText"/>
            <property name="jcr:title" translate="false"/> <!-- translation workflows running on content saved in /content/geometrixx, will not extract jcr:title for Title component, but instead use richText. -->
        </node>
        <node pathContains="/cq:annotations">
            <property name="text" translate="false"/> <!-- translation workflows running on content saved in /content/geometrixx, will not extract text if part of cq:annotations node. -->
        </node>
    </node>
    <!-- translation rules for Geometrixx Outdoors site (example) -->
    <node path="/content/geometrixx-outdoors">
        <node resourceType ="foundation/components/image">
            <property name="alternateText"/>
            <property name="jcr:title" />
        </node>
        <node resourceType ="geometrixx-outdoors/components/title">
            <property name="richText"/>
        </node>
    </node>
    <!-- translation rules for ASSETS (example) -->
    <node path="/content/dam">
        <!-- configure list of metadata properties here -->
        <property name="dc:title" />
        <property name="dc:description" />
    </node>
    <!-- translation rules for extracting ASSETS from SITES content, configure all components that embed or reference assets -->
    <assetNode resourceType="foundation/components/image" assetReferenceAttribute="fileReference"/>
    <assetNode resourceType="foundation/components/video" assetReferenceAttribute="asset"/>
    <assetNode resourceType="foundation/components/download" assetReferenceAttribute="fileReference"/>
    <assetNode resourceType="foundation/components/mobileimage" assetReferenceAttribute="fileReference"/>
    <assetNode resourceType="wcm/foundation/components/image" assetReferenceAttribute="fileReference"/>
</nodelist>