a766986f6d
git-svn-id: https://svn.wxwidgets.org/svn/wx/wxWidgets/trunk@52191 c3d73ce0-8a6f-49c7-b76d-6d57e0e08775
84 lines
4.2 KiB
C
84 lines
4.2 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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// RCS-ID: $Id$
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// Licence: wxWindows license
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/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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/*!
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@page overview_i18n Internationalization
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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 it's 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. But note that no additional libraries are needed during run-time,
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however, so you have only the message catalogs to distribute and nothing else.
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During program development you will need the gettext package for working with
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message catalogs. @b Warning: gettext versions @< 0.10 are known to be buggy,
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so you should find a later version of it!
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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 which is the one returned by
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wxStandardPaths::GetLocalizedResourcesDir(
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wxStandardPaths::ResourceCat_Messages ). If the message catalogs are not
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installed in this default location you may explicitly use
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wxLocale::AddCatalogLookupPathPrefix() to still allow wxWidgets to find
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them but it is strongly recommended to use the default directory.
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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_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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@seealso
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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_utils_samples_internat - Shows you how all this looks in practice.
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*/
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