[jsword-devel] I18N

Tue, 30 Dec 2003 00:50:35 +0100

At 12/30/2003, you wrote:

>Andy - this is well worth reading - JSword does something very similar in 
>looking up strings.
>
>The one difference is that where Sword uses "const char*" as the type to 
>look up JSword has a "static final Msg" which lets us add type safety in 
>some places.

const char* is quite allowed in C, while static final should be used in 
Java, just for settings that should be applied to methods in class.

>So JSword code looks like this:
>
>   throw new BlahException(Msg.WRITE_FAIL);

Every thing can thrtow exception. If we read from resource file we get null 
value then we can also throw Exception

>Note you can't throw unless you take note of I18N. This is not a system 
>for sloppy programmers.
>And in the local Msg class
>
>   static final Msg WRITE_FAIL = new Msg("Failed to write");

OOP (Object Orient Programmings) principles, state that no variable should 
be public and directly accesable, by outer entities. All varaibles should 
be private in class and accessible by setter/gettter methods. We programers 
usually make variables public so that they can be accessible from outer 
entities, static final variables shouldn't even be used...

>And in the French resource file:
>
>   Failed to read=N'ecrire pas
>
>(or something)
>
>Hope this helps.
>
>Joe.
>
>Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
>>Hey guys.  I also had a tough time deciding how to handle i18n in the 
>>windows frontend.  As well, we are building an i18n mechanism for our 
>>website.  Here are some of my thoughts.
>>     I agree 100% that I hate keeping string files up to date.  I hate 
>> looking at DEFINE_TOKENS instead of the actual string, and I hate going 
>> somewhere to have to change the string other than right where I'm at in 
>> the code.
>>     Here was my solution in the Windows client: Since Borland's VCL GUI 
>> classes provide programmatic methods to change all the 'Caption' or 
>> 'Text' properties of a control, we have 1 function called i12ize(const 
>> char *lang), which is where all the stupid monolithic calls to EVERY 
>> control exist to change it's text.  There are also classes in the SWORD 
>> engine called SWLocale and LocaleMgr which manage locales and do simple 
>> lookups from a basic .conf file formatted like:
>>My English Text=My Alternate Language Text
>>Here are excerpts from the code:
>>____________________
>>#define _tr(text) LocaleMgr::systemLocaleMgr.translate(text)
>>void TForm1::i12ize(const char *lang) {
>>      LocaleMgr::systemLocaleMgr.setDefaultLocaleName(lang);
>>      File1->Caption = _tr("&File");
>>      SaveLayout1->Caption = _tr("S&ave Layout");
>>      Print1->Caption = _tr("&Print...");
>>      ...
>>____________________
>>translate() looks up the English phrase in the current locale.conf file, 
>>and returns the translation, if it finds it; otherwise, it just returns 
>>back the English phrase.
>>Benefits:
>>o You can code normally, without worrying about i18n.
>>o Worst case is the English will show up on the control
>>o And my favourite part: You can declare, "This is an open source 
>>project!  If you want your language supported, then test it, look for 
>>english strings, and update your lang.conf file!"
>>Those lines should probably be changed to:
>>-     File1->Caption = _tr("&File");
>>+     File1->Caption = _tr(File1->Caption);
>>And better yet a programmatic walk of the control tree, instead of naming 
>>each control individually, would be IDEAL.
>>____
>>For the web interface, we're working on a taglib that adds functionality 
>>like:
>><table>
>><tr><td><t>My text</t></td></tr>
>></table>
>>(Example above, set in a table to just show that it's not extremely 
>>intrusive)
>>The <t> tag does a lookup and replace of the string in much the same way 
>>as LocaleMgr.  It will also allow someone to log in as an admin, set a 
>>session variable admin to true, then a link at the bottom of each page 
>>will appear that says: Administrate I18n
>>While browsing the website, if an administrator sees an English word, 
>>they may click this link, and be taken to a page where they are presented 
>>with all the <t>English Text Strings</t> and the existing translations, 
>>and are able to update any that are wrong or missing.
>>Benefits: It only has one evil tag addition, <t> around all text, and 
>>still allows me to make the coveted Open Source Declaration mentioned above.
>>     :)
>>Hope this, at least, gives some ideas to throw around from someone who's 
>>struggling with the same issues.
>>     -Troy.
>>
>>
>>Joe Walker wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>JSword used to use a method very similar to yours, and I found that the 
>>>message file was constantly getting out of date with respect to the source.
>>>There were 3 problems:
>>>- editing properties files was a hassle
>>>- unused messages would not be purged
>>>- lazy developers (me!) would add an i18n key thinking "i'll add it to 
>>>the message file later" and never do it.
>>>
>>>The Msg system solves these problems by making the I18N type-safe - 
>>>Exceptions take a Msg and not a String and so on.
>>>
>>>You can now navigate to the message with a single key press in any 
>>>decent IDE (in eclipse I just press F3)
>>>You can detect if the message is used without lengthy search procedures 
>>>with your IDE (ctrl+shift+g in eclipse)
>>>The english developer can ignore message files completely because the 
>>>messages are in the source
>>>JSword can sill be internationalized simply by adding message files
>>>
>>>To clear up some of the points you made:
>>>Does this scheme waste space?
>>>We use extra static space for a few objects that wrap strings. Only one 
>>>copy of MsgBase is needed, and the strings themselves (the things that 
>>>take up the real space) would exist anyway.
>>>So yes this does waste some space, but I think that is a reasonable 
>>>price to pay.
>>>
>>>Joe.
>>>
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>jsword-devel mailing list
>>>jsword-devel@crosswire.org
>>>http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/jsword-devel
>>
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>
>
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