Language

[x_zero]

Is there a language pack release, for shopsite that includes russian, because the client that i have has over 2,000 russian vitamin products. If someone could give me some advice of what to do that would be nice.

[Jim]

There is no Russian language version of ShopSite. The merchant interface in all versions since 4.3, which had German, French, Portuguese and Italian versions is in English. It is possible to customize all text which a shopper sees into any single byte character set language in the latest version which is 8.2.

[x_zero]

also is there an option to make a sub, sub catagory?

[jessi]

The merchant interface in all versions since 4.3, which had German, French, Portuguese and Italian versions is in English.

So just to clarify and be really, really sure, the merchant interface for any reasonably current versions is available in English *only*? No hope of a ShopSite that a Spanish-, non-English–speaker could use?

Thanks, Jessi

[Jim]

That is correct versions since 4.3 are only available in English for the merchant interface. It is possible for the merchant however to have all the text on their pages be in Spanish (or most other languages) as long as they can read English well enough to navigate the back office. The help for the 4.3 Spanish version would work for a lot of the functionality since many of the major features were available then.

The cost to translate to another language is very high and since we had so few users for other languages it just wasn't worth the expense. I don't foresee a translation to Spanish being available in the near future.

[jessi]

That is correct versions since 4.3 are only available in English for the merchant interface. It is possible for the merchant however to have all the text on their pages be in Spanish (or most other languages) as long as they can read English well enough to navigate the back office. The help for the 4.3 Spanish version would work for a lot of the functionality since many of the major features were available then.

The cost to translate to another language is very high and since we had so few users for other languages it just wasn't worth the expense. I don't foresee a translation to Spanish being available in the near future.

Thanks Jim, good to know that the old help could be useful and maybe help a limited-English speaker get by.

I understand completely about the cost of translation! I wonder, though, if you've ever considered having an architecture that separates the back office language resources from the code, and allows other people to create localizations.

Thanks again,

Jessi

[Jim]

At one time (3-4 versions ago) we had that but I don't know if it is still being kept up to date. You might check with our sales department (fill in the form at http://shopsite.com/ready-4.html and see if it is available and if so what cost might be involved.

As I mentioned it would not be a simple task to under take, I believe that we had to pay in the 10's of thousands range for each language when we had it done and that was about 9 years ago. The product has increased significantly in size since then so there would be many more strings to translate. So unless you would be doing it for lots of stores it probably wouldn't be worth the effort.

[jessi]

Thanks Jim! You're very informative.

I'll let the idea go for now. Just one more thought, though. With so many ShopSite partners and users around the world, I might think that if an English language file existed, collaborative volunteer efforts could share out the translation work. I guess it's pie in the sky, though.

Best wishes in all you do,

Jessi