Project creation – Content creation language

During project creation you can set the project’s primary language. The primary language is the content creation language for the project and is the language displayed in the Flow View and other areas of articy:draft. You can select from a pre-defined list or create a custom language, if your desired language is not on the pre-defined list, by entering the language's ISO 639-1 code.
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Project settings – Localization

The Localization settings are responsible for setting and editing primary and secondary project languages and mark if specific objects and properties are supposed to be localizable and can have VO.

Languages

"Language Settings"

• 1 Identified culture name: Name of the specific language entry.
• 2 Display name: Can be edited by the user, for example when planning use in export.
• 3 Voice-over?: Is language entry supposed to have VO? Has effect on data export / import and if VO columns are displayed in localization view or not.
• 4 ISO 639-1: ISO designation of language entry. What is ISO639-1?


• 5 Spelling Dictionary: Shows if the language entry has a spelling dictionary. Green means dictionary is active, red means there is no dictionary available for this language, and a disc symbol means there is a dictionary available for this language, which can be downloaded with a click on the disc icon.
• 6 Edit: Exchange a language with a different language by clicking the wrench icon or delete an entry with the red X.
• 7 Primary language: The first entry is the primary language and is displayed in bold. The primary language is the content creation language for the project and is the language displayed in the Flow View and other areas of articy:draft. The primary language entry can be edited, but it cannot be deleted.
• 8 Secondary languages: All other project languages are secondary languages. These are the target localization languages. They can be edited in the Localization View or monitored with the Presentation View

• 9 Add language: Click to add additional project language.
• 10 Predefined language: Select predefined language from drop-down list.
• 11 Custom: Add language by entering ISO 639-1 code into Culture name field.

• 12 Invariant language: This is shown if a language is unknown and can happen if no main content creation language was set at project creation, a project from articy:draft 3 or older is opened, or a custom language is added without entering the ISO 639-1 code. Use Edit 6 (see image above) to select a recognized language.

Localizable objects and properties

"Localizable objects and properties"

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13 Localizable objects and properties: Here you can set which of articy’s objects and properties are supposed to be localized and get VO. The localizable objects and properties settings affect all project languages (primary and secondary).

Objects are grouped by area (Flow, Entities, Documents, etc) and have a corresponding number of properties. For example a Dialogue Fragment has three localizable properties with .PreviewText, .StageDirections, and .Text 14, a Flow Fragment comes with .DisplayName and .Text 15 as localizable properties.

Each property can be separately set to be localizable for Text 16 and VO 17. Selectable states are active 18 und inactive 19. Tri-state 20 shows that subordinate entries have both active and inactive states. The Voice-over column can also have a deactivated state 21, which is similar to inactive, but it cannot be changed by the user – if a property is not set to be localizable for text it cannot have VO.

Objects and properties set to active are shown and will be editable in the Localization View.
You can always go back to the default settings with the Reset to Default button 22. The default settings are a good starting point. We have included the properties that most likely will be used and have localizable data, namely Flow objects like Flow Fragments, Dialogues, and Dialogue Fragments, which build the story flow of the project; and Entities, which usually include characters and items.

There are two entries in the Localizable objects and properties settings that stand out a bit: Template Design Metadata and User Folders.

Template Design Metadata 23 makes Template meta data localizable, meaning the display names of Template properties. This can be really helpful if these meta properties are part of your project UI, for example attribute names of a character sheet.



The User Folder 24 setting allows to localize user created folders (blue folders) like for example the Characters and Items folders created to organize the entities in the project below 25. It is more of a niche use case, but if it is something that is needed for your project, you can do it.