My name is Kenneth and I write cool Mac and iPhone software. This is my personal weblog where I post about stuff I find interesting. I usually write about Mac development, the business of shareware and the Mac community in general.
read more →LangSwitch, or how to test your app’s localization.
One of the things I hate about Cocoa is its localization system. The first time you look at it, it looks really great. I mean, compared to REALBasic, or Java, or even Qt… at least it has one. But, you see, the problem is that sometimes it creates more problem than it solves.Let me explain: say you’re creating an amazing Cocoa app. You develop it in english until you get to a Release Candidate. Now’s the time to localize it… right, you do the job (it’s never pleasant to localize nibs). Ahh, okay done… You release your app!
It’s the “next big thing” and you become rich (or not). With all this fame you get wonderful feedback and even get it localized in 15 different languages. Wow, now’s the time for a 1.1. With all the feedback you’ve got you’ve decided to make a few big UI changes. The thing is, not only do you need to modify your english nib(s), but you also need to make the same changes to every other language’s nibs!!! Alright, since you’ve got no choice, you do it. The thing is: there is a high probability you will make a mistake without noticing (it happened to me once). What then happens is you ship with a faulty localizations, you get lots of weird complain email in Japanese, and… you’re screwed!
The only boring and time-consuming solution is to thoroughly test the new UI in every localization before releasing. This is especially time-consuming as you have to change the language settings in System Preferences every time you want to change the localization.
Also, another downside of this is that it changes your whole computer (well, just your session, but whatever…). I personally don’t really like to use a computer in Chinese…
That’s where LangSwitch comes in… It gives you a simple GUI way to switch the localization for only the app you’re testing. It displays only the localizations avaiable for your app. Here’s an easy way to test your different localizations without the hassle.
Oh, and did I forget to mention… It’s Free!
Update: Excellent LangSwitch review!
This entry was posted on Sunday, July 8th, 2007 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Apple, Français, Internet, School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Add your thoughts!
Thank you very much, just what I needed! Thumbs up!
Brilliant! This app solves the problem perfectly. Thank you so much for this.
To launch applications in other languages you can use this (http://www.arizona-software.ch/ilocalize/launchapp-plugin.html) Plugin as well.
THANKS!
as a small developer I “love” you for that app :-))
Two (very) small nits:
* The About window says: “© LangSwitch, 2007”
* In the Application menu, it says: “Hide NewApplication”
I know this doesn’t have anything to do with functionality, which I’ll definitely try next ;-)
Kenneth, just look at AppleGlot and iLocalize. Not perfect, but better.
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Are you aware that you can translate nib files without opening them in IB? Read the nibtool man page—it allows you to import translations from a .strings file into the v1.1 nib and save it out as another langauge. Also, IB has a “don’t break the nib file” preference setting for translators.
If there is something about the Cocoa localisation system that seems backwards or broken to you, then you’ve probably overlooked the tool that makes it easy for you.
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