Creating multilingual projects

The following procedure for creating a multilingual project also serves as a guide to adding multi-language support to existing projects. In this case, however, output the existing project's database first.

Make a backup of the project that you want to edit.

Export the data points using the ASCII Manager. We recommend that you use the filter options-filter TDOPA. If you also want to export the configuration's history, please use the option H additionally. Close WinCC OA to perform the following steps.
The configuration fileconfig contains several entries "langs" for the supported languages. It may also contain one entry "lang" for the active language. If the lang-entry is not present, then by default the language of the first langs-entry is used as the active language.
Config file
```
[general]
langs = "en_US.utf8"
langs = "fr_CA.utf8"
langs = "de_AT.utf8"
langs = "hu_HU.utf8"
lang = "de_AT.utf8"
```
In a multilingual project it is forbidden to change either the order of the languages or the coding manually (UTF-8, It. ISO-standard coding and other codings) in the config file. WinCC OA does not support mixing different character coding within the same project.
Create a new database with the WCCOAtoolCreateDb utility. This program creates a new database based on the entries in the config file. If you convert an existing project, you must, after creating a new database, input the data points again through the ASCII Manager.
```
<wincc_oa_path>\bin>WCCOAtoolcreateDB -proj <ProjName>
```
Translate the panels that you have created with the Translator tool (see Translator, basics).

WCCOAtoolCreateDb

This program creates a new database based on the entries of the configuration file config.

The status indications and the error messages from WCCOAtoolCreateDb are written into the file createDb.log under the path <proj_path>/log/.

The parameters of WCCOAtoolCreateDb are:
```
-config <proj_path>\config\config { -lang <lang> } 
-help -system <Systemnummer> <Systemname> -yes
```
If no system name is entered, then WCCOAtoolCreateDb will automatically add a name.
During a WinCC OA project creation it is possible to pass the data point lists (which are normally imported by the ASCII manager) directly to the WCCOAtoolCreateDb tool and consequently import them automatically.
```
-importAsciidplist/<File>
```
For <File> enter a data point list file. Per command line the import of only one file is allowed. The data point lists will be imported in this sequence they have been entered to the operating system command lines.
Either an absolute path or a relative path can be entered. In case of a relative path, the /dplist project folder will be browsed.

Enter e.g. the following commands to the command line:

WCCOAtoolCreateDB -system <otherOptions> 
-importAscii dplist/testFile1.txt
-importAscii dplist/testFile2.txt
-importAscii dplist/testFile3.txt

Command line options

-apar (ASCII manager),
-dpar (Data manager),
-epar (Event manager), 
-spar (Simulation manager)

If other data and event host names and port numbers are used than the default host names and ports, these host names and port numbers must be specified by using -apar, -dpar, -epar and -spar.

The following example shows how to create a database by using other port numbers than the default ports:

wincc_oa_path\bin>WCCOAtoolCreateDb 
 -yes -config D:\WinCC_OA_Proj\DBCreateTest\config\config 
-lang en_US.utf8  -system 402 mySystem1 
-apar "-data localhost:5897 -event localhost:5998" 
-dpar "-data localhost:5897 -event localhost:5998" 
-epar "-data localhost:5897 -event localhost:5998" 
-spar "-data localhost:5897 -event localhost:5998"

Note that the host names and port numbers used for -dpar, -epar, -apar and -spar, MUST correspond to the host names and port numbers specified by using the "data" and event" config entries in the project config file.

data = "localhost:5897"

event = "localhost:5998"

When you create a database by using the WCCOAtoolCreateDb.exe tool, the languages are listed including the parameters

{Active}{Para}{Meta}:

{Active} is the "lang" entry of the config file,

{Meta} is the "metaLang" entry of the config file and

{Para} is an obsolete entry.