• Table of contents
• Localization Guide
  • Localization Files
  • Issues with Editors
• How to translate the Open eCard App?

Localization Guide¶

This first section is intended to provide information how internationalization is managed in the Open eCard App. If you are a translator willing to contribute an translation see here.

Localization Files¶

All translation files must be located below the folder openecard_i18n plus a component name. The special file Messages.properties is used to provide translated key value pairs. Completely translated files can have any other name. All files must be encoded as UTF-8.

All translation files follow the same scheme to identify their language. The language is written in the form of BCP 47 language tags. However instead of -, _ is used as a separator, which is the common practice. This implementation only supports a subset of the BCP 47 specification, meaning only language and country codes are allowed. The default language, which is English is described by C. The name of the file and its language is separated by _. The file ending is optional for arbitrary files.

The following examples illustrate the scheme.

Messages_C.properties
Messages_de.properties
Messages_de_DE.properties
anyotherfile_C
anyotherfile_C.html

The implementation tries to find the key in the requested language, then the default language and if nothing is specified at all, a special string in the form of <No translation for key <requested.key>> is returned. The most specific translation is used first as the following list shows.

openecard_i18n/gui/about_de_DE.html
openecard_i18n/gui/about_de.html
openecard_i18n/gui/about_C.html

Issues with Editors¶

The Netbeans property editor does not write UTF-8 encoded files, but instead ASCII files with Unicode escape sequences. Until a workaround is provided or the issue is fixed, please use another UTF-8 capable editor. In practice that means any editor except Netbeans.

How to translate the Open eCard App?¶

The Open eCard Project uses the translation service of Transifex which is an online tool for translations. If you want to contribute a translation for your language, sign up or login on Transifex and request member ship for your language on the Open eCard Project page there. As soon as your are accepted you may start with the translation process.

The usage of the online service has the advantages that you don't have to care about file format and encoding. The translation process is done with the online editor and you may easily save the translation there and it is integrated afterwards, no need to send them via e-mail or commit it into the git repository.