Bilingual Web Slideshow Builder (BWSB) is software for Windows 95 through Windows XP to create Web site slide shows in any two languages using the common Latin alphabets (a,b,c, etc. with or without accent marks.) Examples can be seen at jnjreid.com/peru and jnjreid.com/mexico. (The Guatemala Web site at jnjreid.com/guate was originally created by hand and was the inspiration for BWSB. It has now been converted to the new format.)
The software is in Beta test and will be available for use by those agreeing to complete a test report.
The user selects a picture for each Web page, then writes a title and narrative to match in each of the two selected languages in boxes in the BWSB software. The software compiles HTML Web pages. First it creates a homepage with description in each language. Clicking on one of them goes to the first picture page in that language.
Picture pages have buttons for "next" and "previous" in the appropriate language. They also have a button to switch to the other language at any time. There is a "contents" button that goes to automatically compiled tables of contents in each language. Content entries are linked to the corresponding picture page. In other words, the viewer can traverse the picture pages forward or back or can go to any page directly from the contents page.
The Web pages that are created use validatible XHTML 1.0 STRICT markup, resulting in the fastest and most uniform display by all modern Web browsers. However, the markup tags used are basic, so the oldest Web browsers will still display them. All formatting is by external Cascading Style Sheets permitting the skilled Web site builder to alter the basic display, but knowledge of style sheets is absolutely not needed by the average user.
The user must be able to write in both languages. BWSB does not do the translation. The user must know how to type accented characters (if needed), either by the ALT key method or by installing an alternate keyboard layout in Windows. (The Help file gives suggestions.) The user must know how to resize JPG pictures for the Web.
BWSB comes with default button names and comments in English and Spanish. These can easily be altered for any combination of two European languages.
If you would like to use BWSB for your own Web site, email me (jreid@dca.net) and describe your project. Please understand the software is still in Beta test. It will not be perfect. And you will be asked to report on your experiences and make suggestions.
I have been working with computers since 1956 and currently have successful specialized software on the market for both Windows and the Palm OS as well as Perl scripts for use on multiple operating systems.