[jawsscripts] Re: Localization
- From: Doug Lee <doug.lee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <jawsscripts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 09:10:46 -0500
This is a response to several things in this thread at once and is
thus a bit lengthy.
The standard way to support localization in JAWS is to have different
language-specific versions of jsm files for each language. For an
installer, this means distributing different files depending on the
language wanted. The files also go into a different JAWS folder based
on the language.
There are several places where a language is selected: There's the
Windows language, the application language, the JAWS language, and the
synthesizer language. Out of these, it's the JAWS language that
determines which folder is used to run scripts. So for example, if you
use JAWS in Spanish, scripts come from settings\esn folders instead of
settings\enu folders.
There is of course some considerable appeal to the idea of using a
runtime method of selecting language. Ini files are an obvious choice
for this, but they fail at one crucial thing: A jsm file's
"messages"/"endMessages" construct allows for multiline messages. This
is particularly handy for crafting help text. An ini file does not
conveniently allow this. There are workarounds, such as keys with
numeric suffixes; but these end up being very messy to maintain when a
long block of text changes.
Another candidate might be xml. Xml would of course allow unlimited
text block size, but I'm not sure how easily one could keep the actual
structure of a text block unchanged. Specifically, I suspect newline
characters could get translated automatically into spaces, which could
destroy the intended appearance of help text.
I've actually considered trying to adapt the GetText system used by
other open-source projects for JAWS, but I haven't found the time or
managed to assess completely enough the feasibility of this endeavor.
Finally, there's the option of designing a format specifically for
JAWS for this. This can be done using the Scripting.FileSystem object
to read file contents. Again I have not tackled this project for lack
of time/energy, but it is certainly possible.
My final item to address here is a return to the issue of how to
select a language. This is actually the most compelling reason, in my
opinion, for considering a change in how to handle localization in
JAWS:
As I said, the single criterion currently for selecting a language for
a script is the JAWS language. In practice though, there are times
when more than one language applies to a situation: People may run
Windows itself in English, then run Skype in Spanish or English at
different times while running JAWS in Spanish or English but not
necessarily in sync with the Skype language. This may sound unlikely,
but though I have no proof that it happens, I suspect it does because
of the difference in complexity (not to mention expense in some cases)
of switching the JAWS or Windows language versus switching the Skype language.
In short, I think it would be cool to let a script choose its language
for output based on the JAWS or synthesizer language while choosing
the language for its "input" based on the Windows or application
language. (The application language might be hard to determine from a
script though.) I put "input" in quotes because I really mean the
language of constants that are sought from within the application,
such as MSAA and window name strings and actual screen text. I don't
know how much effort this change is worth because I don't know how
frequently people try to run an application in a different language
than JAWS itself. Comments welcome on that question.
On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 02:42:32PM -0600, Jim Snowbarger wrote:
I am curious how people do this. You create a JSM file which contains
messages written in a particular language. But, as far as I know, there is
no way to qualify the message based on the currently selected language. The
only way I know to do it is to substitute a new JSM file with the correct
language, and recompile the script.
I'm sure that isn't the right way to do that. Can somebody set me straight
on the preferred technique?
Thanks much.
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Doug Lee, Senior Accessibility Programmer
SSB BART Group - Accessibility-on-Demand
mailto:doug.lee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.ssbbartgroup.com
"While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done,
it was done." --Helen Keller
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