How to make user text translatable


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Last updated at 8:12 pm UTC on 25 July 2004

Question: April 09, 2004 Is there a how-to document about making code translatable ?
Answer: Diego Gomez Deck For the 90% of the cases you only need to send #translated to every visible String. When #translated is evaluated, the receiver (one string) answers the version of this string/phrase in the current language. So,

  "answer 'casa' when Spanish is the current language" 
  'house' translated.

The other useful message (needed to cover the missing 10%) is #format:. String>>format: is a type of "printf()" with a really simple (aka stupid) syntax. The occurrences of '{N}' will be replaced by the string representation of the object at position N in the given SequenceableCollection, so:

  "evaluates to 'My name is Diego and I'm 31 years old'
   when anObject is me"
  'My name is {1} and I'm {2} years old' 
      format: {anObject name. anObject age}.

The goal with format is to replace former string concatenations like:

  'My name is ', anObject name, 
  ' and I'm ', anObject age asString, ' years old'.

Where we need to translate mix constants and variables. As you can see, the order used in the concatenation above makes sense only in English. Since, the #format: replaces the symbolics based on position, the translator can rearrange the places where the expansion occurs.

Combining #translated and #format: you can translate almost any piece of code, For example:

  'My name is {1} and I'm {2} years old' translated 
     format: {anObject name. anObject age}.

Question: How do I install translation capablitity and get it going in my image?
Answer:

Open the Package Loader from the world menu (See SqueakMap) e (you can install squeakmap through the "Welcome to " window that appears when starting squeak)
Install "Squeak Multilingualization" package from the Package Loader (find the package on the left pane, right click to get the menu and click install)
Download a file with the appropriate transalation for example http://homepages.vype.de/sebastian/squeak/EToyVocabulary-addGermanVocabulary.st
Install the file using the file browser (you may need to remove any XML tags at the beginning or end)
Again from the squeak world menu, choose help -> Set Language -> Deutsch
Verify that the changes work: e.g. doit on "append" translated should give "hangen an"