Re: Gorm Localisation Support

[Stefan Urbanek]

On 2003-10-29 17:53:52 +0100 Jeff Teunissen <address@hidden> wrote:

> 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.

Why?

[way of translation != automatic translation tool, but rather overall procedure 
of translation where human is involved]

> 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.

What about German vs English? I think, most of the languages will have longer 
strings than english does. Therefore, you are true if you will be designing 
.gorms in one of those languages with longer words :-) Btw. english has one of 
the shorthest word lenght average.

> 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.

Yes, if you desing master grom file in other language than english, this will 
work.

> 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.

I agree about the different interface. What I was proposing was a way how to 
simplify creating of the new interface. Meybe you have miunderstood. You copy 
one of the translated gorms and recreate it by hand. Point is, that you need to 
do just minor changes to the ui, instead of recreating it from scratch. And 
remember, that with what i have proposed, youallways keep strings translated.

> 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.

No, I have never said that simple translation oftext is sufficient. This is why 
I was speaking about manual relayout of copies.

> 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.

I think we are not even close to be able to create some automatic translator 
yet. What we can do now, is to minimise human effort in the translation process.

Stefan Urbanek
--
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you 
win.
- Mahatma Gandhi