How to share texts and translations across mobile apps?

Question

We currently support English, German, Spanish, Italian, and French as languages. We have an iOS, Android, and Windows Phone app, and an HTML/JS webapp. The three mobile apps are very similar. All have mostly the same screens and texts. Each app is done by a small team and features are developed for all apps in parallel. Quite a few texts are also used in the webapp.

We are now facing the problem of how to manage our (english) text strings and their translations. Right now, we have Google documents with tables that show screen drafts and their corresponding english texts and their translations. We coordinate the translation efforts by email and comments in the documents.

We were looking into translation tools (namely Transifex). We appreciate things like the translation memory, the glossary, and the easy integration into SW development workflows. But these tools do not fulfill two basic requirements we have:

1. Sharing the same texts (source language and translations) across all apps, so that if the source text or its translation changes, the change is propagated to all apps.
2. Grouping the texts by screens and showing the screen drafts while translating to give context to the developer.

Therefore we started thinking about whether we are actually looking more for a (text-) content management system with some translation support rather than just a translation tool.

So what shall we look for? How do other companies with similar requirements handle the situation?

Answer 1

There are a lot of tools for translations management (mostly paid services, but some have free plans). Here is the list (originally borrowed from here and updated with some more items):

• https://localise.biz (has free plans)
• http://transifex.com
• https://crowdin.com
• http://smartling.com
• http://oneskyapp.com
• http://poeditor.com
• http://phraseapp.com
• http://webtranslateit.com
• http://getlocalization.com
• http://lingohub.com
• http://lokalise.co (has free plans, free Enterprise plan for Open source projects)
• http://weblate.org (has free plans)
• https://across.net
• https://alchemysoftware.com
• https://qordoba.com
• https://textunited.com
• https://applanga.com
• https://www.icanlocalize.com

Answer 2

You want to look for a translation management tool that gives you flexibility in how your source strings are created and organized.

I suggest you take a look at Smartling.

1. You can control whether or not your original source strings are duplicated or shared across you different apps. If you have a string like “Submit” that is used in each app, you can have just one instance of that string so if the translation of that string changes, it’s used for all your apps. If you want to maintain separate strings for each app the SmartMatch feature and translation memory can help you keep the translations consistent. Read more about string uniqueness in Smartling.

2. Smartling lets you see your strings grouped by context. So no matter how they are organized in your file, if you give a handful of strings the same context (because they appear on a single screen), you will see them grouped together that way. Smartling lets you provide context automatically for Web apps and iOS apps, and by using screenshots for other platforms like Android and Windows Phone.

Disclosure: I work at Smartling.

Answer 3

I guess Lokalise where I work is the only one of the available localization tools addressing all of your concerns:

1. It supports cross-platform projects and text strings (keys), i.e. the same string is properly exported to iOS, Android, web, .resx and other platforms if needed. Besides, the tool offers duplicates merging, linking or elimination, while keeping all the file information intact.

2. Automatic screenshot matching against the strings in the project. You upload the screenshots in bulk and they are linked to the strings and appear in the web editor, boom!

3. 50% of the teams using Lokalise translate themselves, 50% order through the platform.

4. Some icing on the cake is the iOS and Android over-the-air SDK that instantly updates text strings in your apps bypassing the App Store and Google Play. You might need it in-between app updates for correcting typos, optimizing your wording and/or finishing your translations on the fly.

5. You can source your translations from a crowd by enabling translation suggestions and voting and posting a link on the web or your internal blog.

6. The subscription starts at $50/mo. Open-source and/or non-commercial projects get everything for free.

7. In-web online support chat with developers on the other side, e.g. posting an API request is not a big deal.

Hope it helps.