Em 23/07/2009, às 16:08, PulkoMandy <pulkomandy@xxxxxxxxx> escreveu:
This has some drawbacks, however : first, its not really practical for the app developper, and second, if there is no translation catalog available, everything will be replaced by empty strings, making the app unuseable.
I like how Mac OS X does it. The application has a "native" set of strings, those "hardcoded" by the programmer. Then, for each target language, *including* the "native" one, there's an exact-match substitution table for all the strings in the program, with context (which menu, dialog etc).
So you can, for example, have two contexts with the word "The Finder" and have a target language en_GT (for "ghetto" ;)) where the first instance will be translated to "Da Finda" and the second one to "Teh Seeka".
Naturally, layout concerns must be addressed, and I'm of the opinion that the layout API, which is still considered private and unstable, must be stabilised and made public ASAP, else we'll face the same issues of those horrible Windows programs. The translation facility isn't supposed to be constrained to system apps AFAIK. This is a sensitive issue to me because my parents would be helpless using the OS and programs in English, whereas I don't even try to use localised OSs or apps anymore because the length of phrases in Portuguese is more often than not longer than the corresponding English ones, and if I had a nickel for every cut sentence in labels and dialogues I've seen so far... And I'm sure every ESL-speaking person in here has a similar story to share.
My R$0,02; Cheers,A.
