Cocoa mail archive
Re: An interesting localisation issue
FROM : Simon Stapleton
DATE : Sat Nov 23 18:11:35 2002
On Friday, Nov 22, 2002, at 18:20 Europe/Paris, Douglas Davidson wrote:
>
> On Thursday, November 21, 2002, at 10:40 AM, Simon Stapleton wrote:
>
>> So, it seems to me that the localisations available for a loadable
>> bundle depend on the localisations available in the loading
>> application.
>>
>> Now, this isn't really a problem for me (before shipping, I'll be
>> localising everything) and I only noticed because I localised at the
>> lowest level first, but I'd be interested to know if this is how it's
>> supposed to work. It seems rather bizarre, to say the least.
>
> Yes, this is correct behavior. Otherwise an application might use
> content from multiple sources with multiple localizations--for
> example, an English-only app might take half of its content from the
> Japanese version of AppKit installed on the system. For some
> applications that might be acceptable, but in most cases it would not
> be desirable, and some applications simply could not handle it. You
> can simply add an appropriate .lproj to your application, or for
> unbundled applications use the CFBundleLocalizations key.
Well, like I said, it's not a problem for me as all the localisations
will be done before shipping. However, this brings up a couple of
other, related, questions...
- Would it not be better for an application that is not localised to a
particular user's setup to pull as much 'properly' localised
information as possible from the system? I appreciate that this is
likely to end up with inconsistencies, but those are going to happen
anyway - a Japanese localised user using an English-only app is going
to see all his/her menus go from Japanese to English and back as he/she
flips between apps, and while running the app itself will still have
all those Apple menus in Japanese anyway, no? I'd expect this to be,
at least, distracting, for users[1], but they may well be used to it.[2]
- What bearing does the 'international' stuff in System Prefs have on
this? As I read it, any localisations not checked in the list should
be ignored while searching for resources, and yet when I unchecked (and
removed from the list) 'English', then fired up my non-localised[4]
Omniweb, it came up in English anyway. I was actually expecting it to
eat flaming death[5].
It's all grist for the mill of course; the mill, in this case, being
'Localise to the max'.
Simon "footnote overload[6]" Stapleton
[1] Probably all users who aren't using the 'English' localisation or
one of its children, but I'd guess it's about a million times worse for
those using non-roman alphabets. Especially if their preferred second
language isn't English. Imagine most of your system use in Arabic, but
with some apps in French, and the rest in English. Eeeagh!
[2] I guess I'm just lucky to be one of those who uses the de-facto[3]
standard localisation.
[3] Or, some might prefer, 'lowest common denominator'
[4] It's a lot smaller to download on a modem connection, and as none
of the locals use my machine...
[5] or something.
[6] ...this is getting silly
--
PGP Key Id : 0x50D0698D
--
If the answer isn't obvious, the question is a distraction. Go find an
easier question.
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DATE : Sat Nov 23 18:11:35 2002
On Friday, Nov 22, 2002, at 18:20 Europe/Paris, Douglas Davidson wrote:
>
> On Thursday, November 21, 2002, at 10:40 AM, Simon Stapleton wrote:
>
>> So, it seems to me that the localisations available for a loadable
>> bundle depend on the localisations available in the loading
>> application.
>>
>> Now, this isn't really a problem for me (before shipping, I'll be
>> localising everything) and I only noticed because I localised at the
>> lowest level first, but I'd be interested to know if this is how it's
>> supposed to work. It seems rather bizarre, to say the least.
>
> Yes, this is correct behavior. Otherwise an application might use
> content from multiple sources with multiple localizations--for
> example, an English-only app might take half of its content from the
> Japanese version of AppKit installed on the system. For some
> applications that might be acceptable, but in most cases it would not
> be desirable, and some applications simply could not handle it. You
> can simply add an appropriate .lproj to your application, or for
> unbundled applications use the CFBundleLocalizations key.
Well, like I said, it's not a problem for me as all the localisations
will be done before shipping. However, this brings up a couple of
other, related, questions...
- Would it not be better for an application that is not localised to a
particular user's setup to pull as much 'properly' localised
information as possible from the system? I appreciate that this is
likely to end up with inconsistencies, but those are going to happen
anyway - a Japanese localised user using an English-only app is going
to see all his/her menus go from Japanese to English and back as he/she
flips between apps, and while running the app itself will still have
all those Apple menus in Japanese anyway, no? I'd expect this to be,
at least, distracting, for users[1], but they may well be used to it.[2]
- What bearing does the 'international' stuff in System Prefs have on
this? As I read it, any localisations not checked in the list should
be ignored while searching for resources, and yet when I unchecked (and
removed from the list) 'English', then fired up my non-localised[4]
Omniweb, it came up in English anyway. I was actually expecting it to
eat flaming death[5].
It's all grist for the mill of course; the mill, in this case, being
'Localise to the max'.
Simon "footnote overload[6]" Stapleton
[1] Probably all users who aren't using the 'English' localisation or
one of its children, but I'd guess it's about a million times worse for
those using non-roman alphabets. Especially if their preferred second
language isn't English. Imagine most of your system use in Arabic, but
with some apps in French, and the rest in English. Eeeagh!
[2] I guess I'm just lucky to be one of those who uses the de-facto[3]
standard localisation.
[3] Or, some might prefer, 'lowest common denominator'
[4] It's a lot smaller to download on a modem connection, and as none
of the locals use my machine...
[5] or something.
[6] ...this is getting silly
--
PGP Key Id : 0x50D0698D
--
If the answer isn't obvious, the question is a distraction. Go find an
easier question.
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