Localization Realization

Aaron Douglas @astralbodies

Who am I?

• Aaron Douglas

• Red Arrow Labs in Milwaukee

• Mobile (iOS & Android) & Enterprise Java Developer

Internationalization vs Localization

• i18n vs L10n

• i18n = adapting to work everywhere

• L10n = additional features for a specific locale

What Is the Point?

• Language

• Culture

• Conventions

• Legal

Sounds hard.

• It can be difficult

• It’s not as easy as translate.google.com

• It can pay off big

Why Localize?

• Opens up markets for your product(s)

• Apple gives “free” insertion into localized App Stores

• Greater income

• Your power users = your translators

When do I start?

• From day one

• Existing application

What do I localize?

• Strings

• Numbers

• Dates

• Images

• Layouts

NSLocale

NSLocale

• Encapsulates a lot of information

• Language

• Cultural conventions

• Dates

• Numbers

Different Locales

• System Locale

• Current Locale

• NSCurrentLocaleDidChangeNotification

Strings

Strings

• NSLocalizedString

• XIB/NIB/Storyboards

• Localizable.strings

• lproj folders

• UTF-16 files

/* All-day switch label */ "All-day" = "All-day";

cell.textLabel.text = NSLocalizedString(@"All-day", @"All-day switch label");

Keys, Values and Comments

genstrings & ibtool

find . -name \*.m | xargs genstrings -o en.lproj/

ibtool --generate-strings-file MainMenu.strings MainMenu.xib

ibtool --strings-file MainMenu.strings --write ../French.lproj/MainMenu.xib

MainMenu.xib

Looks can be deceiving

• Keys are unique to each strings file

• Don’t overload!

• UTF-16 plays hell with email

• Use the comments properly

• Positional parameters

Comparing & Sorting

• A a B b C c D d = English

• a, A, b, B, c, C, ä, Ä = Swedish

• Called collation

• -compare: is wrong

• Use -localizedStandardCompare:

Validation

• Your validation logic may be locale-dependent

• Postal codes

• Regular Expressions

Debugging

NSDictionary *defaults = @{ @"NSShowNonLocalizableStrings": @(YES), @"NSShowNonLocalizedStrings": @(YES)}; ![[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] registerDefaults:defaults]; ![[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] synchronize];

Numbers

NSNumberFormatter

• +localizedStringFromNumber:numberStyle:

• Styles: General, Currency, Percentage, Scientific, Spell-Out

Examples

• @45678.90

• General: 45,678.90

• Currency: $45,678.90

• Percentage: 4,567,890%

• Scientific: 4.56789E+04

• Spell-Out: Forty five thousand six ...

Locale Specific Formats

• 45 678,90

• ¥456.78

Number Tips

• Avoid intValue

• Use NSNumberFormatter

• Unit conversion is important

Dates

Dates

• One of the most messed up concepts

• NSDate is a wrapped NSTimeInterval

• Simply a point in time

Why Are Dates Hard?

• Time Zones

• Leap Years

• Leap Seconds

• Date Math

• Calendar Conversion

Calendars

• Gregorian

• Islamic

• Hindu

• Hebrew

• and on and on

Don’t Assume

• Date formats / Input masks

• Length of days/weeks/months

• Gregorian

• Location hasn’t changed since launch (timezones!)

Do Assume

• API calls with date formats

• Internally stored dates

• NSDate has no timezone

Images

Images

• Use Core Graphics to draw text

• No text on launch images

• Keep cultural references in mind

Cultural Images

Layouts

Layouts

• Words can be different lengths in another language

• Mac OS X has autolayouts

• iOS may “some day” have autolayout

• [UIBarButtonItem possibleTitles]

ibtool

• Separate NIBs for each locale

• Don’t make layout changes in locale-specific NIB!

• Programmatically move items

• Wait until iOS 6...

Translation

Process

• Collect Strings files/resources

• Send to translators

• Incorporate new strings

• Test, test, test, test!

translate.google.com

Greenwich

Greenwich

• Mac & iOS Apps!

• iOS requires a Mac & Bonjour

• http://github.com/fadingred/Greenwich

Services

• gengo - http://gengo.com

• Applingua - http://applingua.com

• Amazon Mechanical Turk

Resources

Apple Developer Library

• Internationalization Programming Topics

• International Mountains (Sample Code)

WWDC Videos

• 2011 - 131 - Getting Your Apps Ready for China and Other Hot Markets

• 2012 - 244 - Internationalization Tips and Tricks

Demo

Questions?