JBossIDE localization

[mculpepper]

Antonio Ceccon has emailed me stating an interest in contributing by localizing JBossIDE for Brazilian Portuguese. There are a few issues at hand, namely:

- Currently JBossIDE externalizes all (or at least most) of it's user input strings into property files. He will need to translate all of these to parallel property files I suppose.. (*.properties.br?)

- We will need to figure out how to hook these translated property files into Eclipse's localization support, hopefully this will be relatively simple.. Koen/Max.. do you guys have any insight here? (I'm playing the ignorant American here)

- We will also need to apply this functionality to the entire JBossIDE stack.. (HTools, jbpm gpd, aop developer, ejb3 tools, cache ide, etc etc).

I've pointed Antonio to this thread so he can come and post his thoughts directly.

[maxandersen]

i haven't done much localization for hibernate tools up till now .... to much conflicting ways of doing it while i started so I planned to do it when I found the "way". ...unfortunately i haven't found it yet (haven't looked hard though)

I plan to fix/find out when I clean up for the move to jboss cvs.

[cecconae]

Hi,

I´ll be looking JBoss Eclipse IDE to see how it handle
localized strings and soon I´ll put some news.

[cecconae]

Hi,

I studied how we could organize localized string files in Eclipse
plugins, later we could do that for features as well. There
are many ways to do that. They could be packed in the plugin
folder or packed in a plugin fragment like Eclipse Foundation does :

Eclipse Example :

Plugin ..........: org.eclipse.jdt.debug_3.1.1 ( English strings only )
|
----- plugin.properties
|
----- jdimodel.jar -> JDIMessages.Properties


Plugin Fragment .: org.eclipse.jdt.debug.nl1_3.1.1 ( Translated strings )
|
----- plugin_pt_BR.properties
----- plugin_it.properties
----- plugin_fr.properties
----- ...
|
----- nl1.jar -> JDIMessages_pt_BR.Properties, JDIMessages_fr.Properties

Following that model it would be possible to distribute a
language pack like Eclipse Foundation does and it
could be separated from main project thread. The
only disvantage I can see is that plugin folders
will double.


JBoss Plugin Example :

Plugin ..........: org.jboss.ide.eclipse.jdt.core_1.4.0 ( English strings only )
|
----- plugin.properties
|
----- org-jboss-ide-eclipse-jdt-core.jar ->JDTCoreMessages.Properties


Plugin Fragment .: org.jboss.ide.eclipse.jdt.core.nl1_1.4.0 ( Translated strings )
|
----- plugin_pt_BR.properties
----- plugin_it.properties
----- plugin_fr.properties
----- ...
|
----- nl1.jar -> JDTCoreMessages_pt_BR.Properties


Can you analize that ? let me know
about your conclusions or doubts.

[maxandersen]

thanks for looking into i18n for jboss ide.

Any reason why those properties isn't just put in the main plugin ?

[cecconae]

It is possible, but it could causes some side effects.
Below I pointed out some of them that we need to
think about. Put localization resource files in
the main plugin or in a separated project is an
strategic decision.


1- Normally string files go to people that work
only with translation. When you have a project
with those files only people don´t need to go
throughtout the project looking every file type
to locate only those files that need translation.
Translation files would be separated from other
files.

2- If translated string files are put in the main
plugin, won´t be possible to pack an English version
only. You must translate all the strings before
launch a new version. With a separated project
would be possible to build a plugin compatible
version lang pack and make it available after
the main plugin.

3- Would be possible to split plugins management,
if necessary. ( Main plugin / Language pack plugin )

[maxandersen]

ah - i misunderstood the first time; i thought you were talking about making a project per translation.

i guess having them in package fragments make sense; but lets get some translations first ;)

[cecconae]

Ok Max, I am starting the translation. When I have some files
translated I´ll send to you.

[cecconae]

Just to ping, I am working in translation.

Antonio Edson Ceccon