Magnolia CMS

In a previous article I explained how to cluster two Magnolia public instances.   Today I will explain another scenario. At the end, we will have 4 public instances where one single workspace (forum) is clustered and the all others workspaces will be also clustered but only between 2 public instances.   It’s not clear? […]

It is not easy to write text that translates well. We just started translating Magnolia CMS documentation into Chinese. Here are five insights we learned on the way that make work easier for authors and translators.1. Chinese Wikipedia is your ... [More] friendMany software terms are well known in their original English form and may not need translation. For proprietary and established terms, check if Chinese Wikipedia translated them.If Wikipedia translates the term, you probably should too:http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web容器http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_containerIf Wikipedia does not translate the term, you likely don't need to either.http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Servlethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_ServletUsing commonly accepted, established terms avoids a lot of confusion. Users who read general documentation about the Java platform and Web technologies can apply the terms they learned.2. Lower case and upper case don't exist in ChineseIn English we use capital letters to distinguish proper nouns from common nouns. For example, we call the Magnolia message center the "Pulse". It is called the Pulse because it gives you vital information about the state of the system and your workload. When you hold a finger on someone's wrist you get an overall idea of how well they are doing: no pulse = not good. Similarly, the Pulse informs you about tasks and issues you must address.All clear? Good.In Chinese, the pulse on your wrist and the Pulse are both 脉搏. Same word, identical spelling. Chinese readers cannot tell the difference. Funny as it may be, if they saw a literal translation of "Go to the Pulse and..." they might check their wrist and feel confused.In translation we left the English word intact and qualified it. Pulse 信息中心 ("Pulse messaging center") implies that Pulse is a term that has a special meaning.3. Cultural jokes don't workJokes, puns and expressions that rely on colloquial English translate poorly. Even if the translator knows the meaning of the English expression, there may not be an equivalent in the target language.This is usually not a big problem in technical texts which are matter-of-fact and contain few cultural references. But as a writer you need to be alert. We got caught by two obscure expressions in one week: Location, location, location and on-the-fly.4. Identify text that doesn't need to be translatedIf readers never see the text, why translate it? An example is our Inclusions library where we keep reusable chunks of content. We include the content on other pages. Reuse prevents duplication and makes changes easier - you change the chunk once and the change propagates to wherever the chunk is used.The inclusion library page and its children are not displayed in the table contents. In fact, readers actually never hit those pages. The library is just an organizational tool for us editors.So we did not translate any inclusion library page titles. We only translated the body text of each chunk since that's what gets blended into Chinese context. This saves us a little bit of time. Interestingly, it is also the only section of Chinese documentation that non-Chinese speakers can still easily identify thanks to the English page titles.5. Get helpThis last tip is not about writing but the translation process.Hire a native speaker with translation experience. I was fortunate to find a Chinese translator who has worked on the Java platform. She is Web-savvy and is planted right in the Magnolia development team in Beijing. Reachable directly, no looping through middlemen, fast turnaround. This arrangement is working very well.We also chose a translation agency in case we need to farm out lots of text on a tight deadline. The agency is based in China. We did the homework and had several agencies submit samples, then picked the best.Got tips about writing text that translates well? Leave a comment. [Less]

Das Blossom Modul ermöglicht die Springintegration in Magnolia. Dies ermöglicht dynamische Template-, Komponenten- und Dialogdefinitionen mittels Annotationen. Zudem können bereits bestehende Spring Applikationen in Magnolia integriert werden. In ... [More] diesem Blog Post möchten wir uns die annotationsbasierte Templatedefinition genauer ansehen. Templates Um … Weiterlesen → [Less]

In den meisten Seiten-Templates von Magnolia kann über den Einstellungs-Dialog der Seite der Tab Dependencies aufgerufen werden. Dieser Tab zeigt uns, welche Dokumente (DMS) und andere Seiten die aktuelle Seite einbindet. Das ist z.B. nützlich, wenn ich sehen möchte, ob … Weiterlesen →

In vielen Namics-Projekten steht die Anforderung im Raum, Übersetzungs-Labels und andere Kongifurations-Werte direkt im CMS anpassen zu können – ohne dass dazu ein Deployment resp. eine Änderung am Code stattfinden muss. Obendrauf muss es vorallem in Multisite-Auftritten möglich sein, einzelne … Weiterlesen →

In Magnolia 5 technical documentation we have a page titled Location, location, location. The page explains how the system identifies where you are with a URL history fragment.Examples:I am in the Pages app, editing a page ... [More] named about:#app:pages:detail;/demo-project/about:editI am in the Contacts app, viewing a contact named ldavinci:#app:contacts:browser;/ldavinci:treeview:Very nifty! This means you can bookmark any location and go back there instantly.The document about location fragments is very technical. But the title is a pun. The phrase "location, location, location" is used in real estate for the three most important factors in determining the desirability of a property. The phrase was coined by Harold Samuel, a British real estate tycoon.This in an example of a safe joke technical text. Native English speakers get the punchline and have a giggle. But even non-native readers get the point. For them, the repetition emphasizes importance.Then things got tricky.How do you translate the page title into another language? We are translating technical documentation into Simplified Chinese and we need ground rules regarding what is translatable.What would you do?Translate the title as is? (Location, location location)位置位置位置Remove the repetition and translate "Location" once?位置Keep both languages? We do this with proper nouns that are not translatable such as the Pulse messaging center (Pulse信息中心).Location位置We went with option 2. The pun just doesn't work in Chinese, nor does the repetition really. It was better to focus on clear message than muddling it with an obscure pun.But we sure had fun finding the solution. :) [Less]

In this article I will explain how to cluster two Magnolia public instances in order to share all the content between all the workspaces. The author instance will activate the content only to one public.   Both public instances will persist their content on the same mySQL database.   Author will keep the default Derby […]

It’s been quite while since I last posted on this blog – actually exactly 17 minor/maintenance releases ago. Maintenance releases and their frequency is what I want to write to you about today. Magnolia CMS is a successful product and … Continue reading →

Setzen Sie Celum für die Verwaltung Ihrer Dokumente und Bilder ein welche Sie auch auf Ihrem Webauftritt verwenden möchten? Wir haben einen Magnolia-Celum Connector implementiert. Installation und Inbetriebnahme Das Modul wird als Maven-Abhängigkeit dem Projekt hinzugefügt und steht danach per … Weiterlesen →

There's a new episode out of the Chariot TechCast, this time the topic of discussion is Magnolia CMS and the Blossom spring integration module. Listen in as Boris Kraft, CTO of Magnolia and myself talk with Ken Rimple about the history of Magnolia ... [More] , the revamped user interface in version 5 and of course in depth about how the Blossom module works!The podcast is available on iTunes and as a direct download on the Chariot TechCast site.For iPhone there's a great podcasts app from Apple, that I discovered only recently. It lets you subscribe to podcasts and can download new episodes automatically when on WiFi as they become available. Check it out and subscribe to Chariot's podcasts, lots of interesting stuff in these for Spring developers. [Less]