Göran,

Nice idea but too hard at this point. Just consider the simple example of a
system browser where the title says 'System Browser: Object'. Even if you
would go in and translate it the system can't really figure out where the
source string(s) came from and how to divide them up. This would require
either some 'reverse execution' facility ;-) or even more manual work in
preparation of some localization. An even worse example is 'Error: subscript
is out of bounds: 3'.

Cheers,
  - Andreas

> -----Original Message-----
> From: goran.hultgren at bluefish.se [mailto:goran.hultgren at bluefish.se]
> Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 1:33 AM
> To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Cc: Andreas.Raab at gmx.de
> Subject: RE: Localization in code
>
>
> Hi guys!
>
> "Andreas Raab" <Andreas.Raab at gmx.de> wrote:
> > Richard,
> >
> > > I rather like having messages in separate files because
> >
> > I don't mind having them in separate files ... what I *do*
> mind is having
> > them in external files exclusively and no relation to the
> context they're
> > used in.
> >
> > > + You can give them to someone to translate who doesn't
> have to know
> > >   about the programming language involved.
> >
> > True and not true. As I said, the loss of context is a big
> issue here. It
> > makes it extremely hard for that person to get an answer to
> the question "in
> > what context are you using this phrase?!" which was
> effectively the only
> > question we ever got from people translating stuff for us.
> [SNIP]
>
> I read Andreas vision for a Localization browser and I like it. I also
> agree that mucking about with symbolic names for localized strings is
> really ugly and a pain.
>
> But the stuff about context above gives me one more idea - the ability
> to translate strings DIRECTLY on the screen (so to speak)
> would be even
> better than editing the code. This would abide to the Morphic value
> "directness" (or whatever it's called) and that would REALLY keep all
> the context!
>
> For example, I would like to switch to "Svenska" (swedish), run the
> system and when I find a String in the UI that is in english (fallback
> on a default language when there is no swedish translation
> available) I
> would like to translate it "in place" by using the halo after that it
> would show the swedish translation.
>
> Then of course, you would also be able to use a tool that can show you
> places that still are not translated.
>
> regards, Göran
>