Re: [FR-devel] FreeRIDE I18N [was: Very alpha version of FRdebugger inCVS]

[Hal E. Fulton]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Horacio Lopez" <address@hidden>
To: <address@hidden>
Sent: Friday, August 02, 2002 1:22 AM
Subject: Re: [FR-devel] FreeRIDE I18N [was: Very alpha version of FRdebugger
inCVS]

Thanks for this reply...

> I hope my english is clear enough to answer Hal's questions too,
> sometimes I know my english has some quirks, and may not be
> as clear as desirable.
> (if my explanations are not enough, please guys help me)

Your English is fine -- better than some of the
native speakers... :)

> Hal... the L?"TEXT_PRESS_ANY_KEY" syntax means
> you are retrieving a string value from a language db
> being "TEXT_PRESS_ANY_KEY" the key in that
> key-value pair table.
>
> Some advantages:
>
> * it's shorter, readable and easier to write than
>   equivalents in other languages...
>   an example of achieving the same thing in Java:
>   http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/i18n/intro/after.html
>   it's much more verbose.
>
> * This simple syntax allows us to easily extract all the
>   occurrences of internationalizable text that appears
>   in the source code.
>   That way you can write an app without even caring
>   of creating your language databases, you can do it
>   later by extracting all the strings and translating
>   them as needed. (with a future visual translation plugin !)

Hmm, I guess I understand the semantics OK, but I'm
wondering exactly how Ruby understands this.

I mean, is there a method called 'L?' that belongs to
the Object class? And the following string is a parameter
for it? I haven't looked at the source in weeks.

> I don't know if it looks weird for ruby coders,
> you are way more experienced in Ruby than I am,
> so any suggestions will be taken into account.

I think it looks fine, I just want to be sure I grasp
the concept. And I think all of us here have much the
same experience level.

> Now.... some additional thoughts.
>
> One of the sources of documentation on I18N I have taken
> into account was the Java documentation.
> http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/i18n/intro/after.html
>
> In Java, they use "resource bundles" instead of
> "language repositories".
> A language resource, from their point of view, is
> just one of the many types of resources
> (other resource types could be bitmaps, text files, etc)
>
> In Win32, for example any EXE or DLL can be a resource
> repository too. (including language tables)
>
> I am thinking of expanding the concept we had.
>
> What happens if you have an icon with a STOP
> sign ?
> What happens with Help files in different languages ?
>
> I think eventually we should end up extending
> the concept of the repositories to admit
> data types other than language hashes.
>
> not right now, but eventually..... just a thought

Hmmmmmm. Yes, I agree.

Thinking about the icon issue, could we treat a graphic
as just a string? After all, it's just a long stream of
bytes... but maybe that's not a useful way to think.

Aren't some resource items language-dependent and others
not?

Hal