BorlandTalk.com Borland discussion newsgroups   Archives   FAQ   Search   Memberlist   Usergroups   Register   Profile   Log in to check your private messages   Log in  How to do internationalization in BCB?          BorlandTalk.com Forum Index -> C++ Builder (Non-Technical) View previous topic :: View next topic   Author Message Randall Parker Guest Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 6:18 pm    Post subject: How to do internationalization in BCB? BCB doesn't appear to have any obvious I18N support. Am I wrong to think that? In BCB there are all the caption properties where one can, in the designer, set the text to show in them. If one wants to support the same app in different human languages then what are the techniques for doing so? It would be nice if right there in the designer one could assign text to the caption per language. Have some sort of drop-down list of the format: LANGUAGE message user sees Another option would be some separate tool that would analyse your project and provide you with a list of controls that have Caption properties that are filled in and show what the values are. Then in other columns in this tool type in text for other target languages. Then somehow use that result to generate different files (dfm files? perhaps .dfm.somelanguage) to build in different ways. Also, can VCL support Unicode as a code page? Back to top Remy Lebeau (TeamB) Guest Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 6:46 pm    Post subject: Re: How to do internationalization in BCB? "Randall Parker" <STOPtechiepundit (AT) EVILfuturePOXpunditSPAM (DOT) com> wrote in message news:400587e9$1 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com... Quote: Also, can VCL support Unicode as a code page? The majority of the VCL is based on AnsiString, not WideString, and thus cannot work with or display any foreign Unicode-based languages. Any Unicode string that is passed to AnsiString is automatically converted to ANSI/MBCS, which is not the same thing. You would have to use third-party WideString-aware components for that instead. Gambit Back to top David Bridges Guest Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 6:48 pm    Post subject: Re: How to do internationalization in BCB? I did something simlar to this (for creating Spanish language versions of my forms) by creating an XML file for each form that lists the names all of the controls on the form along with their Spanish (or French, or whatever) captions. At runtime, the program reads this file and changes the captions on all the controls on the form. Most forms in my application use this feature. I also built a GUI "maintainer" than can attach to a form and allow editing of the values - but that's a seperate, independent piece. Hope that helps David Bridges "Randall Parker" <STOPtechiepundit (AT) EVILfuturePOXpunditSPAM (DOT) com> wrote in message news:400587e9$1 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com... Quote: BCB doesn't appear to have any obvious I18N support. Am I wrong to think that? In BCB there are all the caption properties where one can, in the designer, set the text to show in them. If one wants to support the same app in different human languages then what are the techniques for doing so? It would be nice if right there in the designer one could assign text to the caption per language. Have some sort of drop-down list of the format: LANGUAGE message user sees Another option would be some separate tool that would analyse your project and provide you with a list of controls that have Caption properties that are filled in and show what the values are. Then in other columns in this tool type in text for other target languages. Then somehow use that result to generate different files (dfm files? perhaps .dfm.somelanguage) to build in different ways. Also, can VCL support Unicode as a code page? Back to top Dennis Jones Guest Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 7:42 pm    Post subject: Re: How to do internationalization in BCB? "Randall Parker" <STOPtechiepundit (AT) EVILfuturePOXpunditSPAM (DOT) com> wrote in message news:400587e9$1 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com... Quote: BCB doesn't appear to have any obvious I18N support. Am I wrong to think that? In BCB there are all the caption properties where one can, in the designer, set the text to show in them. If one wants to support the same app in different human languages then what are the techniques for doing so? It would be nice if right there in the designer one could assign text to the caption per language. Have some sort of drop-down list of the format: LANGUAGE message user sees Another option would be some separate tool that would analyse your project and provide you with a list of controls that have Caption properties that are filled in and show what the values are. Then in other columns in this tool type in text for other target languages. Then somehow use that result to generate different files (dfm files? perhaps .dfm.somelanguage) to build in different ways. I do something along those lines: I have a separate directory for each language of a project. In each language directory is a project to generate a resource-only package, and all of the DFM's and RC's that make up the main project. I have a program that analyzes the resource-only project files and generates a text file containing all of the strings used by the various DFM's and RC's in the projects -- one text file for each language. The language text files (and an English equivelent) are sent to a translator along with a separate tool that the translator uses to edit the text. The tool displays the English text and the translated text (which is initially English too) and lets the translator enter the alternate language's text. When the translator is done translating, he sends the translated language text file back to me. When I get the translated text file, I merge it back into the DFM's and RC's for that language (using the same tool that extracted the text initially), and then compile the resource-only project(s). The main application does the work of loading the appropriate per-language resource-only package at run-time, depending on the language selected by the user of the application, and can be changed by the user at run-time (assuming he can read and understand that language!!). There is still some manual work involved, primarily because it requires an entire separate set of DFM's and RC's for each language, which must be created ahead of time, along with the resource-only project. Part of that process involves adjusting the CharSet property for text-based components appropriately for the target language. Another problem with this method is that if the text doesn't fit on the form after translation, it must be size-adjusted to fit. Also, the text extraction/merge tool I use is pretty lame (it was written by someone else), and I haven't had the time to fix it. If I had my druthers (and I don't in this case-- the client doesn't want to pay for the effort to create a better solution), I'd redesign the forms so they could handle any language text without needing to be resized (the client doesn't want to do this because they say some languages would require the forms to be huge (like German or Dutch), and they don't want other users (English) to have huge forms when it isn't necesasry -- oh well). Then I'd create the per-language DFM's, RC's, and resource-only project files automatically at build-time, automatically adjust the Charset of the text-based components as necessary, and merge the per-language text just before compiling. With this scheme, I would never have to create resource-only projects ahead of time, nor would I have to create copies of the DFM's and RC's manually, and everything would happen automatically at build-time. The only manual processes would be extracting the translatable text and the translation. That was a long-winded way of saying there are many different solutions. It all depends on how you want to do it. This is just how I do it today. - Dennis Back to top Michael Brazee Guest Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 8:15 pm    Post subject: Re: How to do internationalization in BCB? Randall, I have used both with success. 1) free - http://home.ccci.org/wolbrink/tnt/delphi_unicode_controls.htm Controls are derived from VCL controls with AnsiString replaced by WideString. Unicode works only on WinNT based OSes, not Win/9X. 2) not free - Eldos controls - http://www.ceberus.com/lmd/products/lmdelpack/ "Randall Parker" <STOPtechiepundit (AT) EVILfuturePOXpunditSPAM (DOT) com> wrote in message news:400587e9$1 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com... Quote: BCB doesn't appear to have any obvious I18N support. Am I wrong to think that? In BCB there are all the caption properties where one can, in the designer, set the text to show in them. If one wants to support the same app in different human languages then what are the techniques for doing so? It would be nice if right there in the designer one could assign text to the caption per language. Have some sort of drop-down list of the format: LANGUAGE message user sees Another option would be some separate tool that would analyse your project and provide you with a list of controls that have Caption properties that are filled in and show what the values are. Then in other columns in this tool type in text for other target languages. Then somehow use that result to generate different files (dfm files? perhaps .dfm.somelanguage) to build in different ways. Also, can VCL support Unicode as a code page? Back to top Simon Macneall Guest Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 10:47 pm    Post subject: Re: How to do internationalization in BCB? Randall Parker <STOPtechiepundit (AT) EVILfuturePOXpunditSPAM (DOT) com> wrote in news:400587e9$1 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com: Quote: Another option would be some separate tool that would analyse your project and provide you with a list of controls that have Caption properties that are filled in and show what the values are. Then in other columns in this tool type in text for other target languages. Then somehow use that result to generate different files (dfm files? perhaps .dfm.somelanguage) to build in different ways. We have just started down this road, and have decided on GNU gettext for Delphi (<http://dybdahl.dk/dxgettext/>). It works find in BCB and does exactly what you are looking for with a minimum of fuss. Simon Back to top Simon Macneall Guest Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 11:30 pm    Post subject: Re: How to do internationalization in BCB? OBones <obones_fff_ (AT) meloo_fdf_ (DOT) com> wrote in news:4005de0c (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com: Quote: I'm using the exact same one and it is a real pleasure to use it, nothing complicated at all. We were a bit worried about have a borland only solution (we have projects in BCB and VC) but managed to get the base GNU gettext working the same in VC with a minimum of fuss. Simon Back to top Ken de Camargo Jr. Guest Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 11:40 pm    Post subject: Re: How to do internationalization in BCB? Simon Macneall wrote: Quote: Randall Parker <STOPtechiepundit (AT) EVILfuturePOXpunditSPAM (DOT) com> wrote in news:400587e9$1 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com: Another option would be some separate tool that would analyse your project and provide you with a list of controls that have Caption properties that are filled in and show what the values are. Then in other columns in this tool type in text for other target languages. Then somehow use that result to generate different files (dfm files? perhaps .dfm.somelanguage) to build in different ways. We have just started down this road, and have decided on GNU gettext for Delphi (<http://dybdahl.dk/dxgettext/>). It works find in BCB and does exactly what you are looking for with a minimum of fuss. I've made an utility that reads all dfms in a BCB project, creates resource files and adds code to load the resource strings. It's called "Hello, world" (OK, I wasn't particularly inspired then) and is freely available from my page (see url below). -- Ken http://planeta.terra.com.br/educacao/kencamargo/ Back to top Simon Macneall Guest Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 12:05 am    Post subject: Re: How to do internationalization in BCB? OBones <obones_fff_ (AT) meloo_fdf_ (DOT) com> wrote in news:4005e6b8 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com: Quote: We did that too, except that we extended it to automatically translate an MFC application. That's a bit of a pain, and doesn't really allow changing language at runtime, but it does work. Most of our VC stuff is dlls with little or no UI, so we shouldn't have to go to that extent (touch wood). Back to top OBones Guest Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 12:25 am    Post subject: Re: How to do internationalization in BCB? Simon Macneall wrote: Quote: We have just started down this road, and have decided on GNU gettext for Delphi (<http://dybdahl.dk/dxgettext/>). It works find in BCB and does exactly what you are looking for with a minimum of fuss. I'm using the exact same one and it is a real pleasure to use it, nothing complicated at all. Back to top OBones Guest Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 1:02 am    Post subject: Re: How to do internationalization in BCB? Simon Macneall wrote: Quote: We were a bit worried about have a borland only solution (we have projects in BCB and VC) but managed to get the base GNU gettext working the same in VC with a minimum of fuss. We did that too, except that we extended it to automatically translate an MFC application. That's a bit of a pain, and doesn't really allow changing language at runtime, but it does work. Back to top Brent Guest Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 2:10 am    Post subject: Re: How to do internationalization in BCB? I read a chapter in BCB Developer's Guide 5 about this very topic. It provided excellent ideas. regards, Brent "Randall Parker" <STOPtechiepundit (AT) EVILfuturePOXpunditSPAM (DOT) com> wrote in message news:400587e9$1 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com... Quote: BCB doesn't appear to have any obvious I18N support. Am I wrong to think that? In BCB there are all the caption properties where one can, in the designer, set the text to show in them. If one wants to support the same app in different human languages then what are the techniques for doing so? It would be nice if right there in the designer one could assign text to the caption per language. Have some sort of drop-down list of the format: LANGUAGE message user sees Another option would be some separate tool that would analyse your project and provide you with a list of controls that have Caption properties that are filled in and show what the values are. Then in other columns in this tool type in text for other target languages. Then somehow use that result to generate different files (dfm files? perhaps .dfm.somelanguage) to build in different ways. Also, can VCL support Unicode as a code page? Back to top Pete Fraser Guest Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 9:42 am    Post subject: Re: How to do internationalization in BCB? Quote: We have just started down this road, and have decided on GNU gettext for Delphi (<http://dybdahl.dk/dxgettext/>). It works find in BCB and does exactly what you are looking for with a minimum of fuss. This is an excellent free product. You add a single pascal file to your project and add a single call to each form to translate it at run time. Then you use the windows context menu to extract all strings to a .po file which you can edit and translate using the poedit application. Users can thus translate their own strings. The only thing you have to do in code is replace all occurrences of "a string" with _("a string") so that the string extraction application works. Its very simple once you start using it. -- HTH Pete ================================= GenHelp: The Component Authors help writer Web: www.frasersoft.net/genhelp ================================= Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First         BorlandTalk.com Forum Index -> C++ Builder (Non-Technical) All times are GMT Page 1 of 1   Jump to: Select a forum C++ Builder Newsgroups----------------C++ BuilderC++ Builder (ActiveX)C++ Builder (Announcements)C++ Builder (Command Line Tools)C++ Builder DatabasesC++ Builder Databases (ADO)C++ Builder Databases (Desktop)C++ Builder Databases (InterBase Express)C++ Builder Databases (Multi-Tier)C++ Builder Databases (SQL Servers)C++ Builder (Graphics)C++ Builder (IDE)C++ Builder (Internet)C++ Builder (Internet Socket)C++ Builder (Internet Web)C++ Builder (Jobs)C++ Builder (Language)C++ Builder (Language C++)C++ Builder (Compatibility with MFC)C++ Builder (Native API)C++ Builder (Non-Technical)C++ Builder (Students)C++ Builder (Third Party Tools)C++ Builder (Upgrade)C++ Builder (VCL)C++ Builder (VCL Components Usage)C++ Builder (VCL Components Development)C++ Builder (VCL Usage)C++ Builder (WinAPI)C++ Builder Installation Delphi Newsgroups----------------Delphi (General)Delphi ActiveX Controls UsageDelphi ActiveX Controls DevelopmentDelphi As400Delphi DatabasesDelphi Databases (ADO)Delphi Databases (dbExpress)Delphi Databases (Desktop)Delphi Databases (InterBase Express)Delphi Databases (Multi-Tier)Delphi Databases (SQL Servers)Delphi DeploymentDelphi GraphicsDelphi IDEDelphi InternationalizationDelphi InternetDelphi Internet Isapi-WebBrokerDelphi Internet WebSnapDelphi Internet WinsockDelphi JobsDelphi Language BASMDelphi Language ObjectPascalDelphi Model Driven Architecture (General)Delphi Model Driven Architecture (Third Party)Delphi MultimediaDelphi Native APIDelphi Non-TechnicalDelphi ObjectPascalDelphi OLE AutomationDelphi OO designDelphi OpenToolsAPIDelphi Reporting-ChartingDelphi RTLDelphi StudentsDelphi TeamSourceDelphi Thirdparty ToolsDelphi Thirdparty Tools (General)Delphi Thirdparty Tools (IntraWeb)Delphi Thirdparty Tools (RaveReports)Delphi UpgradeDelphi VCLDelphi VCL ComponentsDelphi VCL Components UsingDelphi VCL Components WritingDelphi WebServices SOAPDelphi WinAPIDelphi XMLDelphi Installationcomp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.misccomp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.usagecomp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.writingcomp.lang.pascal.delphi.databasescomp.lang.pascal.delphi.misccomp.sources.delphi JBuilder Newsgroups----------------JBuilderJBuilder AnnouncementsJBuilder Applet IssuesJBuilder As400JBuilder CompilerJBuilder CORBA/RMIJBuilder DatabasesJBuilder DB SwingJBuilder DebuggerJBuilder DeploymentJBuilder DocumentationJBuilder EnterpriseJBuilder HandheldJBuilder IDEJBuilder JavaJBuilder JavaAPIJBuilder Java LanguageJBuilder Java SwingJBuilder Java BeansJBuilder Java Beans UsageJBuilder Java Beans DevelopmentJBuilder JBCLJBuilder JDataStoreJBuilder JobsJBuilder LinuxJBuilder MacintoshJBuilder & MobileSetJBuilder MultiLingual AppsJBuilder Non-TechnicalJBuilder OpenToolsJBuilder Servlets (JSP)JBuilder StudentsJBuilder Team DevelopmentJBuilder Thirdparty ToolsJBuilder UpgradeJBuilder Installation InterBase Newsgroups----------------InterBaseInterBase Bug DiscussionInterBase GeneralInterBase IBConsoleInterBase OpenSourceInterBase ReplicationInterBase SQLInterBase ThirdpartyInterBase Installation Miscellaneous Borland Newsgroups----------------AppCenterAppServerEnteraVisiBroker  You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2006 phpBB Group SEO toolkit © 2004-2006 webmedic.