So I am wondering with having the app available in multiple languages, would I go about translating the App in thunkable (and have user pick language at start up) or would I translate/Upload different language versions through App Store/Google Play?
Hi! I have uploaded 3 different languages in 3 different countries, and I wouldn’t recommend that. Now I need to update 6 times (App Store/Google Play). If it’s not too much text, use one app with multiple languages.
For some delivery apps I know they release different versions per country, though they have a lot more parameters to deal with.
How many languages are you looking to translate, what kind of things would you be translating and how much app text would you be translating.
You could save the different translations as a json. If it’s just direct app ui, the app will follow the same patterns to extract the correct text, depending on the selected parent object (which would be the selected language).
The translations is the easy part (I do not have much text and have the languages covered). I am more wondering where the user selects the language? Is it in the App or in their device settings? And as such, how do I reflect that in the app?
If it’s the users first time opening the app, you could have them select a language. Then later in settings they can change this.
Amazon do this for their app, you can switch between languages and COO.
So using that idea, on my title screen I have a list that comes up with the languages you want. From there I have a stored Variable called language and, each language in the list is a number. That number is then stored in the Variable
To make it so the user doesn’t have to select language each time it opens, the title screen will bypass language selection if it is greater than or equal 1 (i.e the first language option)
Since each language corresponds to a number if Var Language=2 when the screen opens then I have coded the blocks to change words to their translation in whatever language was second in the list.
To change language back, the user clicks on settings and if they select “Change Language” then the Stored Variable reverts back to 0 and the user navigates to the title screen.
This would be best for apps that don’t have much text to alter (as it would increase App size) but depending on the number of languages it shouldn’t add too much space and would allow the user to reach a wider audience.
does thunkable support dialects? im planning to do a translator app with phillipine dialect. hope you can help me. thank you
From what I have done, you can make your app in whatever language you want, just by typing in text in the language you want the app to appear. If you want to allow multiple languages, I did that by using the above
Is there anyway to use buttons and alerts in different languages dependant on the variable, or does everything including pages need to be duplicated in each language?
Does anyone have a different way to deal with this?
Use stored variables or local tables.
I use stored variables to show pages in English and Arabic. One page and if the switch
in the user profile is true
then I use the English text for the labels when the screen starts, if the switch is false
I use Arabic text in the labels.
See this sample app that shows both Arabic and English in the same page.
https://x.thunkable.com/projectPage/60a013d7aed6ad0012a487bf
This is a quick sample to show the idea.