Thank you very much for this information. (I was looking at the 2.7 source rather than trunk - the Spanish file must have been added after that branch was created).
Following your recommendation, we'll implement the new resource(s) based on the de.js file (i.e. two-character extension, extend English resources). Chris. -----Original Message----- From: Christopher Schmidt [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 5:22 AM To: Chris Claydon Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [OpenLayers-Dev] Additional Lang Files On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 03:00:15PM -0800, Chris Claydon wrote: > Hi, > > I work on the MapGuide Open Source project, which makes use of OpenLayers via > the Fusion open source viewer. We'd like to add support for Spanish, > Hungarian, and possibly Japanese localized strings to OpenLayers, and we have > a couple of questions... Chris, I think what you're seeing is clear evidence that there is not a strong consensus on the right way to do language files yet. :) Our typical coding style dictator (Erik) was not involved in the i18n process, so we didn't get the usual set of process instructions for these files :) What I would recommend is: * Creating a two-char lang file for the 'base' of the language * If there is a different interpretation of the language for a sub-language -- for example, en-GB spells 'colour' differently -- extend from the default/'base' of that language. OpenLayers will automatically handle taking the user's client language ("en-GB") and falling back to en if there is no -GB translation file. * I don't have an opinion on whether we should extend from English or not. If we do, then missing translations get an english string. I we don't, missing translations get a string like 'olMessageStringKey'. I tend to think the former is better than the latter -- at least *some* foreign speakers will be able to handle it, as opposed to 'none'. > So, when creating new language resources, which is the best model to follow? > Is there any documentation on this, or any general guidelines? Not yet, but I'm glad to hear you're interested in helping to build them :) More seriously, I'd welcome a cleanup according to the suggestions above, barring any clear objections on a technical basis from other members of the community. Also, I'm presuming you're aware that there is already a spanish translation... http://trac.openlayers.org/browser/trunk/openlayers/lib/OpenLayers/Lang/es.js Regards, -- Christopher Schmidt MetaCarta _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [email protected] http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo/dev
