Language picker

Once translations have been added to a survey, the language will appear in the Translate table. 

Check the Selectable box in the Available Languages table once a language is ready to be seen.

If at least two languages have been selected in this table, and the survey doesn't explicitly turn off the feature via appconfig (see below), the system will immediately include this language in the Language Picker menu in the bottom corner of survey screens. Respondents will have the opportunity to choose the most suitable language from this menu, updating the survey with the chosen language. 

Because translations are essentially language overlays, the recorded data is stored in the same location regardless of which translated version the respondent uses.

Turning off the Language Picker

For surveys where having this menu is undesired, simply apply the hide language picker tag to the app config widget within the source code.

app config
hide language picker: y

Single-use Language Picker

Survey Programmers (SPs) have the option to apply language picker: y (alias, lang picker) to a radio or pulldown question. Respondents can then select the language in which to take the survey at this one question, rather than having the Language Picker pulldown on every survey page.

For example, the following question would allow respondents to select whether to continue the survey in English, Spanish, or Russian.

1. What language would you prefer to see?
type: radio
lang picker: y
eng. English
spn. Spanish
rus. Russian 

To create a variable with lang picker: y, SPs should be aware of the following considerations:

• All options should use an ID that corresponds to the translation suffixes - parse errors will occur when options have IDs that aren't valid language suffixes (e.g., '2. Spanish' will cause a parse error).
• Wording of the option descriptions is up to the SP.
• If the selected language matches the default language of the survey, then no change is made.
• When another language is chosen, the option's ID string is appended to the survey's appid when the form submits (e.g., '-spn' for Spanish).
• The Selectable column in the Manage Translations grid is not applicable.
• If the SP adds a language that is not yet available as a translation, there are no safety measures to prevent the option from being used.