Make sure you are clear about your use of terms (SAP terminology) when speaking with ABAB developers in your role as the SAP Translation Coordinator!
Source language & target language
Translations are always from a source language to a target language.
Original language
The language in which the developers work (original language of an object). It can be identical to the source language of a translation, but it doesn’t have to be.
If objects are to be translated into a target language from a source language other than the one in which the objects were developed, you need to wait until the translation into the source language is available.
Graph
A graph reflects different combinations of original language, source language, and target language. All of these so called translation directions are grouped together in a translation graph. Worklist runs for translation can only be generated when proper translation graphs have been defined.
Collections
Collections are used to group objects that belong together logically. In the ABAP environment, a package is automatically assigned to a collection. Collection = development class (4.6c) or package (NW 6x).
Note: the term “Collection” in the translation environment is not the same as in the development environment
Object type
Texts (UI elements) are assigned to particular object types. An object type indicates where and how these texts are used.
Examples: Menu entry, program texts, Messages, …
Object list, evaluation
Object lists, which are not language-dependent, contain a subgroup of all objects in the system that can be translated. You set various parameters to determine which objects are included in an object list, in accordance with your translation objectives. The objects which are included in the object list build the basis of language-dependent Evaluations. Those Evaluations are used to create the global worklist.
Worklist
A list of objects available for translation of a target language. Worklists can be created based on object lists, collections or transport requests. They are target language dependent. Two types of worklists exist: global and personal.
Short texts, long texts
Short texts are strings appearing on the UI directly. A short text can be a single string or a group of strings (e.g. if a sentence is splitted to multiple strings). Long texts are objects which are not appearing on the UI directly. They contain more lines belonging together (e.g. F1-help texts, forms, dialog texts).
