living in a multiligual world: internationalization for web 2.0 applications

i18n for Web 2.0Why and how to internationalize your Web 2.0

application

Lars Trieloff, Day Software

Why internationalize?International audiences want localized user interfaces.

Lars Trieloff• Product Manager, Founder,

Blogger, Open Source Coder

• Languages I understand:

• German, English

• Languages I do not understand:

• Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, Bengali, Malay, French, Japanese, Farsi, Urdu, Punjabi, Vietnamese, Tamil, Wu, Javanese, Turkish, Telugu, Korean, Marathi, Italian, Thai, cantonese, gujarati, polish, kannada, burmese (and all other)

Do it yourself, or someone else will do it

What is different in Web 2.0 internationalization?

Web 2.0 internationalization

• Web sites become Web applications

• The Web as a platform

• This means:

• Internationalize your plain old Web site

• Internationalize your rich internet applications

• Javascript, Flash, Silverlight, and more to come

• Internationalize your desktop applications

The internationalization problem is multiplied due to use of different technologies in Web and rich

internet applications as well as desktop applications

Challenge

Solution

Consolidation of internationalization technology: Each technology has its own internationalization framework:

We need a common framework for all of them

What to do

• Keep all internationalization data in one place

• Extract internationalization strings from application parts

• repeatedly

• automatically

• Let the applications pull the i18n strings

What do do

Web application

source code

RIA source code

desktop application

source code

String Extractor

Localization Database

Translator

Translator

Web application

RIA

desktop application

Intermediate Format

Intermediate Converter

ExampleHow we did it in Mindquarry

Our technologyOur problem

• Web application framework: Apache Cocoon, with Cocoon i18n Transformer

• Rich internet application framework: Dojo Toolkit, with dojo.i18n.*

• Desktop client: Java and SWT, with Java Message Bundles

Steps to consolidated i18n

1. Find a common i18n database format

2. Extract internationalizable content automatically

3. Attach applications to i18n database

1. i18n database format

• QT Linguist .ts files• XML files, easy to process• QT Linguist is a good, easy-to-

use and free translation editor• Can be used by non-

programmers

2. Automatic string extraction

• We have three types of source code: XML, Java and Javascript

• XML

• Ruby script parses all XML source code, finds internationalizable strings not yet in database and adds them

• Java and Javascript, similar with a more complex parser

messages.ts (QT Linguist)

XSLT

messages_de.xml (Cocoon i18n)

Apache Cocoon


3.1. Attach Cocoon

• Apache Cocoon‘s internationalization databases are XML files

• Transformation via XSLT

• Multiple output files, one for each language


XSLT


Apache Cocoon


messages_de.js (Dojo i18n)messages_de.js

(Dojo i18n)

Dojo Widget

3.2. Attach Dojo

• Dojo uses JSON as internationalization format

• Transformation via XSLT

• Handled dynamically via Cocoon


Desktop Client

i18n Adapter

3.3. Attach Java

• Message Bundle Reader is overwritten

• Uses internationalization database directory

• Internationalization database is being distributed with desktop client

How to get translations


do it yourself


do it yourself pay someone

¥

€$


do it yourself pay someone

¥

€$

ask your users

User-contributed internationalization

• The holy grail

• Build a community and website at the same time

• But hard to achieve

• Wikipedia

• Open Source projects

Build your own translation

websiteAllows users to sign-up,

contribute localization strings, costly, but allows for automatic post-processing, validation and

quality-control.

Ad-hoc-translations: use

a wikiAllows users to contribute

localization strings without sign-up, easy to deploy, but requires

manual post-processing, validation and quality-control.

Pootle: OSS for web-based translations

GPL-software, based on Python, works with .po or XLIFF, integration with version control, basic project management, used by 20+ open

source projects

http://pootle.wordforge.org



More challenges in Web 2.0 internationalization

• User-generated content

• Rich Web design

User-generated content

• User-generated content is great

• But hard to translate

• But translating it increases network effects

• English speaking users benefit from content generated by German speaking users

• Is there a (partial) solution?

Solution• Structured Content

• Sometimes easier to translate

• ratings

• locations

• time & date

• Sometimes it is still hard

• tags

Graphical text• Looks great

• But hard to internationalize

• can break calculated box sizes,

• re-creation necessary

• Do not do it

• unless you can do it right

• create dynamically on server

Wrap-Up

• Web 2.0 needs internationalization

• Consolidate i18n over apps and platforms

• Allow for user-contributed translations

• Make it automated, repeatable and cheap

Thank you very [email protected]

For more information, see my weblog athttp://weblogs.goshaky.com/weblogs/lars

mailto:[email protected]




living in a multiligual world: internationalization for web 2.0 applications

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