Re: Gorm Localisation Support

[Jeff Teunissen]

Stefan Urbanek wrote:

> On 2003-10-28 20:19:50 +0100 Adam Fedor <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> >
> > On Monday, October 27, 2003, at 07:04 AM, Jeff Teunissen wrote:
> >
> >> What I suggest is a non-public subclass of NSString, called perhaps
> >> "GSLocalizedString", which when decoded will return NSStrings.
> >
> > I like this idea - it sounds simple enough to do. It could eventually
> > lead to one of Stephan's ideas, although his still requires multiple
> > gorm files (although it adds some utilities to make updating them
> > easier).
> 
> We allways need multiple .gorm files if we do not have autolayout
> mechanism. However, if we have well designed way translation, then all
> is needed is to do minor tweaks manually.

The above is not true.

Your language indeed DOES need a separate .gorm file in most cases, because
its words/sentences are longer. That is not true of all languages, and the
point there is to minimize the degree that effort is duplicated.

When possible, a localized version of a Gorm file should look the same as
the standard (English) version. That means having the same metrics and
layout, having everything in the same places and with the same sizes. This
is served by the private subclass of NSString.

Where this is not possible, a different interface must be created that has
the same "flow", but obviously with different metrics and/or layout. The
window may be a different size, the controls may be in different places, but
(and here's the most important part) it _must_ look and feel like it was
designed for the locale in use, as opposed to being a translation.

Simplistic translation of text for this purpose is just wrong (even with
automatic layout). There is a good deal of value in the idea that once
something has been localized, the localization may be updated more easily
than by re-copying the new version of the .gorm and relocalizing the
interface.

Note that I am not speaking of translation. The translation of text is not
enough; an interface "translator" may have to do much more than that,
possibly even involving replacement of images and layout style so that the
localized application feels as if it was designed for the people who speak
that language.

[snip]

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