Epi Info™ 7 has several mechanisms that allow the user to configure the system, set options and defaults, and get help with program usage. The primary device is the Options window, which can be accessed from Form Designer, Enter, Classic Analysis and StatCalc. Options allows the user to set values for parameters controlling language and translation, data analysis, code plug-ins, data access from web surveys and cloud capture, and general items such as the default file format and working directory.

Options Management

Objective

Epi Info™ 7 shall have a mechanism for managing options that affect the system as a whole and can be accessed from any application module.  It shall include an interface for viewing and setting option parameters, as well as storing and accessing them from anywhere in the system.

Functional Requirements

The system shall enable the user to:

1. define the default database format for new projects from amongst the following options:
   1. Microsoft Access 2002-2003 (.mdb),
   2. Microsoft Access 2007 (.accdb),
   3. Microsoft Excel 2007 Workbook (.xlsx),
   4. Microsoft Excel 1997-2003 Workbook (.xls),
   5. Microsoft SQL Server Database,
   6. mySQL Database,
   7. postgreSQL Database, and
   8. .csv file;
2. define the default data format for Analysis READ command;
3. define the service key for mapping and geocoding (using www.bingmapsportal.com);
4. define the default working directory;
5. create a language translation file;
6. import language translations;
7. define the textual representation of: 
   1. Boolean values and
   2. missing Boolean values;
8. toggle the option to include missing values;
9. toggle the following HTML output options:
   1. Show Complete Prompt and
   2. Show Percents;
10. choose from the following Process Records options:
    1. Undelete Records only (normal behavior),
    2. Deleted Records Only, and
    3. Both;
11. ping the Web Survey endpoint address;
12. set the following options for Web Survey:
    1. endpoint address,
    2. toggle whether to connect using Windows Authentication, and
    3. choose between "basic" and "wsHTTP" binding protocols;
13. set the following options for Cloud Data Capture:
    1. endpoint address,
    2. toggle whether to connect using Windows Authentication, and
    3. choose between "basic" and "wsHTTP" binding protocols,
14. ping the Cloud Data Capture endpoint address;
15. save all option information to a common file accessible to all Epi Info™ 7 projects (EpiInfo.Config.xml).

Translating Epi Info™ 7 to Another Language

Overview

As alluded to in the Functional Requirements discussion, there are two steps to translating Epi Info™ 7 into another language.  First, a language translation database must be created with tables encoding the equivalence between the English text used in the program and the corresponding text in the other language. Epi Info™ 7 can be (and, in fact, has been) translated into languages as diverse as Arabic, Chinese, French, Georgian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Most—but not all—of the text visible to the Epi Info™ 7 user must be translated into the new language.  The translated text includes all menu items, dialog boxes, field prompts, and button labels normally visible in the user interface, as well as warnings and program error messages. Items not translated include the Check Code used to support the data collection in forms and the command language used in the Program Editor in Classic Analysis. In both cases, the text has intrinsic meaning to the program and cannot be replaced with alternative text without modifying the underlying software that interprets it. It is also not possible to translate errors that are not trapped by Epi Info™ and are instead caught by the operating system. Errors reported by this mechanism will be in the language dictated by the local configuration (the locale) and may actually reflect the language to which Epi Info™ is being translated.

In Epi Info™ 7, language translation is implemented using a single table in a MS Access database called CulturalResources.  Of the nine translation files available on the Epi Info™ website, Spanish is up-to-date with the latest Epi Info™ 7 release (7.2.0.1). The remainder are at version 7.1.2^[1]. In addition to the fields for the English text (SourceValue) and foreign language text (ResourceValue), there are fields that identify which code module a message is associated with (AssemblyName), the data structure in which the string is stored (ManifestResourceName), the key for accessing it (ResourceName), and the variable type (ResourceType). The user enables a translation by first importing the database file using the Language tab of the Tools→Options dialog (from Form Designer, for example). This process adds the new language to the list of options on the Language tab and creates a new directory containing a series of DLL (Dynamic Link Library) files, one for each module or executable program in Epi Info™ 7.  These "resource" DLLs (with names in the form <module>.resources.dll, e.g., "Analysis.resources.dll", "Enter.resources.dll") contain foreign language strings embedded in the binaries. Once these files are created, restarting Epi Info™ 7 will bring up the program with the translated text enabled.

Notes:

1. Information current as of August 10, 2016.

Functional Requirements

The Epi Info™ 7 application shall enable the user to:

1. read menu items, dialog boxes, field prompts, button labels, and warning, error and other messages in the user's language of choice;
2. port the program to a new language using that person's ability to translate a list of English phrases used in Epi Info™ 7 into that language; and
3. create a database file containing the CulturalResources table prepopulated with all of the English texts embedded in Epi Info™ 7 and ready for the translations to be entered.

Remarks

1. The Spanish translation database for Epi Info™ 7.2 does not cover StatCalc Menu or any of the prompts, labels, captions, or titles on the individual StatCalc calculators.

2. Attempts to use the Create Translation File button on the Language tab of the Options dialog results in the following error: