multilingual project

[Urs Bögli]

Hi community,

My newest project will be used in two contries. One is US, so english
tests are a must.
I would like to offer the tester with texts in German, too.

Is there anybody who has some expierence how to design a multilingual
project (with a switch for the preferred language, not to sets ogf VIs)?

Thanks for any input.
Urs

[DOC-doc]

Hi Urs

Yes we do multilingual softs.
I don't know if we have the best method but here is how we do :
Define text correspondance in a table
Use different column for different country
Redefine All caption in the correct language at the initialisation of the VI
Hide labels

It is a enormous work.

I would be interrested to see if anyone else has a better solution.

Doc-Doc

[vicky]

Hi,
One way in which we had worked once was we had created a exe in japanees, but the main software was in english,just try that method i think it may work out ,plz tell me abt it as i also want to know abt it.
vicky

[Urs Bögli]

Doc-Doc,
I would be happy with some message boxes, maybe the controls can stay in
english.
Your method is perfect, but too much work!
Urs

Doc-Doc schrieb:

> Hi Urs
>
> Yes we do multilingual softs.
> I don't know if we have the best method but here is how we do :
> Define text correspondance in a table
> Use different column for different country
> Redefine All caption in the correct language at the initialisation of
> the VI
> Hide labels
>
> It is a enormous work.
>
> I would be interrested to see if anyone else has a better solution.
>
> Doc-Doc

[Ben]

I agree with your approach Doc-Doc!

It allows for a single application that suuports multiple languages. It does take time and disapline to implement.

The alternative method that I have read about exports strings that can be translated and then imported again. This method results in two applications that must be maintainted.

Ben

[PJM_Labview]

Actually Doc-Doc method seem good.

While I have not try the following, you could try it

You could make this quite painless.

Create a VI utility that inspect your VIs to be translated. Get all controls and terminal references, get their labels and or captions. Create the Logic you want here. example: get caption only if label is empty. Then you can connect to an online service translator (check: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=translate&btnG=Google+Search) to automatically do the label translation. Save everything in a table as described by Doc-Doc (and inspect the result later to be sure it is accurate enough).

Now for the runtime switch to a new language. Put a hidden control or something equivalent on every VIs that should be translat
ed. Now create a new tool that will monitor every VI in memory, for example every 1 second, and will cache a list of VI that has that hidden control flag. When it found one VIs with this flag this tool should translate the VI, if required, using the previously created table. You can even be more fancy. If you have the hidden flag on a VI and by chance you dont have the associated translation table, you can do a translation on the fly by connecting to a translation website on the internet.

This method will require some up front time to develop the require tools but it should be fairly easy to integrate in the final application.

Once again, I have not try this, but it might work

PJM

[LucaP.]

Hi Urs,

I think that this tutorial could be interesting for you: http://zone.ni.com/devzone/conceptd.nsf/webmain/6D94F90FC9B93AAD862568A7007CD4C0?opendocument

Hope this helps.

Luca

[Robert A. Morton]

In many cases such as this there is no reason to switch languages while the application is running. If that is the case then you can simply make two "launcher" VIs that will either load your application in English or in German.

Using the Export/Import VI Strings feature you can export and import all the strings in your VIs which are user-visible. If you export all VI strings into a single file then you can translate that file for German. When you launch your application using the German "launcher" VI then the launcher will load VI references for the VIs you wish to localize, and then import VI strings into each VI before launching the main VI. When the main VI launches, it and all its subVIs will be localized.

Let me know if this helps,
Robert

[Robert A. Morton]

You can import VI strings into a VI which is not running, making it possible to load the localized strings at run-time before your main application executes. Using a separate VI to first import VI strings into your application's VIs before opening the main VI in your application, you can maintain one version of the software. You will of course have to maintain separate translations of the exported VI strings, which will need to be updated whenever you update your application.

I hope this helps,
Robert

[Wiebe@CARYA]

Hi,

You can also make a vi that sets all captions for an entire project. Just
get the VI refs (All VI's in memory), and all the controls from the panel,
look up the vi name and control name, and change the caption accordingly.
This is tricky with dynamic vi's and VI templates though...

Regards,

Wiebe.



"Doc-Doc" wrote in message
news:50650000000500000028BF0100-1079395200000@exchange.ni.com...
> Hi Urs
>
> Yes we do multilingual softs.
> I don't know if we have the best method but here is how we do :
> Define text correspondance in a table
> Use different column for different country
> Redefine All caption in the correct language at the initialisation of
> the VI
> Hide labels
>
> It is a enormous work.
>
> I would be interrested to see
if anyone else has a better solution.
>
> Doc-Doc