macOS Localization of Mac Applications

[satyam90]

Hi,

I have created a application for storage and backup. I used English as native language and developed it. Now I want to make my application Internationalize by adding localization to my application. Everything is fine. But I am able to create localization only in 3 other languages apart from English. The other 3 languages are Japanese, French and German.

Procedure I am following is :
1. Select the "nib" and open the of the project (File->GetInfo)
2. Select "General" tab, and click "Add Localization" button on the bottom left.
3. Select the language from the list and click Add.

That's it.

I want to know How to add other languages like Spanish, Italian etc languages for localizing my application.

Regards,
Satya.

 

[kainjow]

If you don't see the language you want, you can just type it in directly I believe.

 

[satyam90]

What about some language names in Chinese, Japanese or Korean (i don't know exactly what language it is).......I observed the names of different languages in preferences of mac.

 

[guifa]

You can use the language codes to identiify localisations:

es = General Spanish
es_ES = Castilian Spanish
es_MX = Mexican Spanish
en = General English
en_US = American English
en_UK = British English
zh_CN = Simplified (China) Chinese
zh_TW = Traditional (Taiwan) Chinese

You can google the hundreds of other codes.

 

[satyam90]

As said in previous comment, I am using the language codes and localized my application. For testing purpose I changed my Mac books language to French. In my project I have a directory "fr.lproj" which is related to French language.
I am running my application from Terminal/Console.
I observed the following error:

CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): plist parse failed; the data is not proper UTF-8. The file name for this data could be: /Users/johnny/Library/Preferences/com.rogueamoeba.audio_hijack_server.hermes.plist
The parser will retry as in 10.2, but the problem should be corrected in the plist.


After few seconds one more error message displayed.

CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): plist parse failed; the data is not proper UTF-8. The file name for this data could be:
/Users/johnny/satyam/freshcode/exe/Applications/iFolder 3.app/Contents/Resources/fr.lproj/iFolderWindow.nib/keyedobjects.nib
The parser will retry as in 10.2, but the problem should be corrected in the plist.



I am not understanding what I have to change in plist file?

 

[satyam90]

I found out the error.
All the localization files generated must be in UTF-8 format, where are my files are in some other format.

In Windows simple chinese is denoted as zh-CN, but on Mac it is zh_CN, why there is a change in language codes between windows and Mac.

 

[kainjow]

Strings files should be in UTF-16 actually. See Strings Files.

 

[satyam90]

They didn't mention the OSX version where I have to use UTF-16
Do I have to use UTF-16 irrespective of Mac OSX version ie whether it is Tiger or Leapord.

 

[kainjow]

It's a good idea to because the link above says "Strings files encoded using UTF-8 are not guaranteed to work. When in doubt, encode the file using UTF-16."

 

[lee1210]

They didn't mention the OSX version where I have to use UTF-16
Do I have to use UTF-16 irrespective of Mac OSX version ie whether it is Tiger or Leapord.

The last update on the page kainjow linked was last updated 2005-09-08. As such, it certainly applies to tiger. It also seems that there is a difference here between "have to" and "should". You should use UTF-16, as the document states that UTF-8 is not guaranteed to work. That doesn't mean it's guaranteed not to, but it would be wise to heed the advice in the document and use UTF-16.

-Lee

 

[plinden]

In Windows simple chinese is denoted as zh-CN, but on Mac it is zh_CN, why there is a change in language codes between windows and Mac.

The format zh_CN is the POSIX standard used in *nix - Windows is the one out.

 

[satyam90]

Thanks for your updates so that I can change my file format.
How on Mac, How can I change the file format? Which Application I can use to save the files in UTF-16 format?

Also, on 10.4.11 NSLocale's localIdentifier for simple chines is returning zh_Hans and Taiwan chinese it is zh_Hant
What are these language codes irrespective of zh_CN and zh_TW?

 

[Bakerman]

Thanks for your updates so that I can change my file format.
How on Mac, How can I change the file format? Which Application I can use to save the files in UTF-16 format?

XCode can save files in UTF-16 (use View->Text->File encoding).