Re: Aida-Localization

Hi Nico,

I'm thinking about localization for a long time, that is, how to do it 
as simply as possible, otherwise we will soon "degrade" back to putting 
texts directly to the code as it is the case now.

My proposal in few words:

  1. use symbols instead of string for any text, for example:
     a addText: #welcome instead of a addText: 'Welcome'
  2. store language mappings for each view of each App and not globally
     for a whole site
  3. in-line editing (in admin mode) of such text for each view to make
     translation in different languages. This will be as simple as
     possible for translators to make such translation.
  4. also a traditional edit table of texts and translations, but again
     per view per App

I think this way we can make localization of page texts really simple 
and user friendly, both for us programmers and end users.

Nico, I tried your proposal many years ago (see WebMsgs, the remains of 
that try) and it didn't work. First reason is that is too hard to 
program - to enter a text on pages, another is that WebMsgs was a global 
(site) catalog and it soon expanded and become hard to maintain. Another 
problem is where to store such catalogs. Maybe in methods too, as we are 
doing with method images?

Best regards
JAnko

Nicolas Petton wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I started a to work on a localization support for Aida.
> It's available at: http://mc.bioskop.fr/AidaLocalization
> 
> It's quite simple for now: AIDASite has a #preferedLanguage accessor
> which return a symbol (by default #en), and has a translator, an
> instance of AIDATranslator.
> 
> A translator knows how to translate a sentence:
> 
> (AIDASite named: 'aidademo') translator addTranslation:
> ('Hello'->'Bonjour') language: #fr
> 
> then 
> 
> (AIDASite named: 'aidademo') translator translate: 'Hello' to: #fr
>>>> 'Bonjour'
> 
> in views we can translate a sentence with:
> 
> self translate: aString
> 
> for example:
> 
> #viewMain
>     | e |
>     e := WebElement new.
>     self title: (self translate: 'Hello').
>     e addTextH1: self title.
>     self pageFrameWith: e title: self title
> 
> if the corresponding translation is not found, the string is just
> returned.
> 
> Finally, we can change the language of a site with: 
> 
> (AIDASite named: 'aidademo') preferedLanguage: #fr
> 
> And all translations are stored in a dictionary in a class variable, so
> each translator (one per site) knows all available translations.
> 
> It's already working, but could certainly be improved.
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> Nico

--

-- 
Janko Mivšek
AIDA/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si
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