Multi-language setup

Introduction

Here we will describe the recommended approach for setting up Daisy when making use of language variants.

If you are setting up an initial system, you can use the quick setup using daisy-wiki-add-site. If you like to do things yourself or you have an existing document collection in Daisy which you want to extend to multiple languages, refer to the manual setup.

Quick setup: use daisy-wiki-add-site

Using daisy-wiki-add-site it is very simple to set up a multi-language system.

You need to run daisy-wiki-add-site on the system where Daisy is installed (it can't be run from another system, as it needs access to your Daisy Wiki data directory).

To run daisy-wiki-add-site, open a command shell on the system where Daisy is installed, and go to the bin directory of Daisy:

cd DAISY_HOME/bin
daisy-wiki-add-site

Follow the instructions on screen.

Manual setup

Define the languages

This can be done via the Administration console of the Daisy Wiki.

Create a collection

If not yet available, create a collection of which the documents will be part. The different language variants will all belong to the same collection. Do not use a collection per language.

Create a home page and navigation tree document

If you have no initial documents yet, start by creating a home page document and a navigation tree document.

In either case, add language variants for the home page document and navigation tree document for all desired languages.

Define a site for each language

While it is possible to view and edit all language variants of a document through one site, this is in fact only intended for exceptional usage. The normal way to work is to create one site per language (same holds for branches).

Setting up a site is detailed in the sites documentation. There is currently no GUI for this, but it is simply a matter of creating a directory with a siteconf.xml file in it.

In the siteconf.xml, pay special attention to the language, defaultReferenceLanguage and collection. The ID of the home page and navigation tree document will be the same for all the sites, but each site will usage another language variant of those documents.