124 lines
5.7 KiB
C
124 lines
5.7 KiB
C
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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// Name: internationalization.h
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// Purpose: topic overview
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// Author: wxWidgets team
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// Licence: wxWindows licence
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/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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/**
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@page overview_i18n Internationalization
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@tableofcontents
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Although internationalization of an application (i18n for short) involves far
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more than just translating its text messages to another message - date, time
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and currency formats need changing too, some languages are written left to
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right and others right to left, character encoding may differ and many other
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things may need changing too - it is a necessary first step. wxWidgets provides
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facilities for message translation with its wxLocale class and is itself fully
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translated into several languages. Please consult wxWidgets home page for the
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most up-to-date translations - and if you translate it into one of the
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languages not done yet, your translations would be gratefully accepted for
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inclusion into future versions of the library!
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The wxWidgets approach to i18n closely follows the GNU gettext package.
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wxWidgets uses the message catalogs which are binary compatible with gettext
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catalogs and this allows to use all of the programs in this package to work
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with them as well as using any of the tools working with message catalogs in
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this format such as <a href="http://poedit.net/">Poedit</a>.
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Because of this, you will need to use the gettext package to work with the
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translations during the program development. However no additional libraries
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are needed during run-time, so you have only the message catalogs to distribute
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and nothing else.
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There are two kinds of message catalogs: source catalogs which are text files
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with extension .po and binary catalogs which are created from the source ones
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with @e msgfmt program (part of gettext package) and have the extension .mo.
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Only the binary files are needed during program execution.
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Translating your application involves several steps:
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@li Translating the strings in the program text using wxGetTranslation or
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equivalently the @c _() macro.
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@li Extracting the strings to be translated from the program: this uses the
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work done in the previous step because @c xgettext program used for string
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extraction recognises the standard @c _() as well as (using its @c -k
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option) our wxGetTranslation and extracts all strings inside the calls to
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these functions. Alternatively, you may use @c -a option to extract all the
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strings, but it will usually result in many strings being found which don't
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have to be translated at all. This will create a text message catalog - a
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.po file.
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@li Translating the strings extracted in the previous step to other
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language(s). It involves editing the .po file.
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@li Compiling the .po file into .mo file to be used by the program.
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@li Installing the .mo files with your application in the appropriate location
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for the target system (see @ref overview_i18n_mofiles).
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@li Setting the appropriate locale in your program to use the strings for the
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given language: see wxLocale.
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@section overview_i18n_mofiles Installing translation catalogs
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The .mo files with compiled catalogs must be included with the application.
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By default, wxFileTranslationsLoader is used to load them from files installed
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alongside the application (although you could use wxResourceTranslationsLoader
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or some custom loader too).
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The files are expected to be in the resources directory (as returned by
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wxStandardPaths::GetLocalizedResourcesDir(wxStandardPaths::ResourceCat_Messages).
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If the message catalogs are not installed in this default location you may
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explicitly use wxFileTranslationsLoader::AddCatalogLookupPathPrefix() to still
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allow wxWidgets to find them, but it is recommended to use the default
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locations when possible.
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Depending on the platform, the default location differs. On Windows, it is
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alongside the executable. On Unix, translations are expected to be in
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"$prefix/share/locale". On OS X, application bundle's @em Resources subdirectory
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is used.
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In all cases, translations are searched for in subdirectories named using the
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languages codes from ISO 639. The .mo file(s) should be located either directly
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in that directory or in LC_MESSAGES subdirectory. On OS X, ".lproj" extension
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is used for the per-languages Resources subdirectories.
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Here's how an app would typically install the files on Unix:
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@code
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/usr/bin/myapp
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/usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/myapp.mo
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/usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/myapp.mo
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@endcode
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And on OS X:
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@code
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MyApp.app/Contents/MacOS/MyApp
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MyApp.app/Contents/Resources/de.lproj/myapp.mo
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MyApp.app/Contents/Resources/fr.lproj/myapp.mo
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@endcode
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And on Windows:
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@code
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C:\Program Files\MyApp\myapp.exe
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C:\Program Files\MyApp\de\myapp.mo
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C:\Program Files\MyApp\fr\myapp.mo
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@endcode
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It is of course possible to use the Unix layout everywhere instead.
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@section overview_i18n_menuaccel Translating Menu Accelerators
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If you translate the accelerator modifier names (Ctrl, Alt and Shift) in your
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menu labels, you may find the accelerators no longer work. In your message
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catalogs, you need to provide individual translations of these modifiers from
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their lower case names (ctrl, alt, shift) so that the wxWidgets accelerator
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code can recognise them even when translated. wxWidgets does not provide
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translations for all of these currently. wxWidgets does not yet handle
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translated special key names such as Backspace, End, Insert, etc.
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@see
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@li The gettext Manual: http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/gettext.html
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@li @ref overview_nonenglish - It focuses on handling charsets related problems.
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@li @ref page_samples_internat - Shows you how all this looks in practice.
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*/
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