Intended Audience
This guide is designed for system administrators who are setting up and managing a ClearSCADA Translation Dictionary.
Document Scope
The guide describes the ClearSCADA Translation Dictionary. There are two types of dictionary: The File Translation Dictionary and the In-Database Translation Dictionary. This guide describes each of them.
About the ClearSCADA Translation Dictionary
You can replace user-created text in ClearSCADA with text translations. To do this, you create a Translation Dictionary which contains the user-created text items and associated translated text. You then mark the user-created text in ClearSCADA that you want to replace and ClearSCADA will perform a search and replace using the Translation Dictionary.
For example, you might want to replace text in a Mimic with a translation of the text in another language. In ClearSCADA, you mark the text you want to replace with a @ prefix. ClearSCADA will then search for the marked text in the Dictionary, retrieve the translated text associated with it, and then replace the marked text with the translated text.
You can use the ClearSCADA Translation Dictionary in the following:
- Mimics
- Trends
- Query Lists
- Data Grids
- Data Tables
- Alarm Severities
- Alarms List Column Entries
- Point State Descriptions.
In ClearSCADA, you can create two different types of Translation Dictionary. However, you can only use one type of Dictionary at a time. You can use either of them to perform the search and replace for marked text. However, the two Dictionary types differ in how you create and maintain them and how they are integrated with the ClearSCADA database. The two types are as follows:
- File Translation Dictionary. This type of Translation Dictionary is based on simple text files that you create and maintain in Windows® Notepad® or any word processor. The text files need to be in a specific format and in a specific folder. ClearSCADA searches these text files for the translations for your marked text. This type of Translation Dictionary has the advantage of being relatively simple to set up and maintain. However, it exists outside of the ClearSCADA database and so you have to back it up separately. For more about the File Translation Dictionary, see Understanding the File Translation Dictionary.
- In-Database Translation Dictionary. We recommend that you use this type of Translation Dictionary. It is part of the ClearSCADA database and you create and maintain it in Microsoft® Excel®. This allows you to organize the Dictionary easily. Also, ClearSCADA automatically synchronizes the Dictionary between servers and Excel checks the text entries for correct formatting. For more about the In-Database Translation Dictionary, see Understanding the In-Database Translation Dictionary.