Support for languages

It has always been possible in EMu to store and display data in multiple languages in the same field. For instance, your institution can specify that your data consists of English text followed by French text with a delimiter marking the end of one language and the start of another. The default delimiter is ;:; (i.e. semicolon colon semicolon). For example:

hat;:;chapeau

indicates that hat is in one language and chapeau is in another language.

When data is displayed in EMu it is possible to show values for all languages or for an individual language. The setting used to control which languages are displayed is found on the Language tab of the EMu Options box:

If a system only supports one language, the Data drop list and Display Order are disabled. The Data alternatives allow users to decide how data should be displayed within modules in EMu.

In older versions of EMu (prior to 4.2) if a single language is chosen from the Data drop list on the Language tab of the Options box, it is not possible to make changes to the data and all controls in a module are disabled. It is only possible to edit or insert data while viewing the data in All Languages. This ensured that when editing data, users viewed the complete contents of a field while altering it. In effect it forced users to consider all supported languages while entering data.

A more flexible mechanism for displaying and altering data in a multi-language environment was introduced with EMu 4.2. It is now possible to alter data while a single language is displayed. Any data entered into a field will only update the value of the language selected:

When the All Languages option is selected, users may now select the order in which languages are displayed (but not, it is important to keep in mind, the order in which language data is stored in EMu, which is defined by the Supported Registry entry). This allows users who are dominant in a particular language to display this language first with other languages following.
User may now alter data while a single language is displayed. Any data entered into a field will only update the value of the language selected.
When displaying data in a single language and a value does not exist for a given field, the value of the first filled language may be displayed. The text is shown in a user selectable colour (grey by default) to indicate that it is not associated with the current language. When the field is entered, the text is removed, allowing data to be entered.

A number of data entry helpers always display all languages in the user defined order to assist data entry. For example, if a Lookup List is displayed, all languages are always shown so that users may select the correct entry based on context. This is particularly important where one term in a given language has multiple terms in another language.