[Lazarus] Translations / Localizations for controls at design time

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Hi,

On 31 July 2012 16:56, Jürgen Hestermann <juergen.hestermann at gmx.de> wrote:
>
> I have not done very much localization but I am always wondering how all
> these nifty things added for this purpose realy help much.
> I have done it in the following way:


In my opinion, your way is a terrible way to do localization! For
reasons as follows:


* No auto-detect of language when the application starts up.

* When new languages are added, you must rebuild the whole application
(executable).

* You can't use any of the existing PO translating tools which have
some brilliant
   features like built-in dictionaries, suggested translations, spell
checking etc.

* Quickly see a percentage of translation per language.


>  Sometimes
> translations are very crude because someone simply translates the text one
> by one like a google translator without knowing what it means and the
> outcome is often misleading.


That is why it is important to use good & clear resource string
constant names. The constant name alone (and maybe with the help of
existing translations) should make it clear in what context it is
used, thus helping the translator.

eg:

   rsDate = 'Some Date';
   rsTitle = 'Some dialog title';

vs

   rsAccountingTransactionDate = 'Some Date';
   rsCentreMaintenanceDialogTitle = 'Some dialog title';




-- 
Regards,
  - Graeme -


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