Dear Dennis
The mainparts of multilingual applications are: Menu, Messages (inkl.
dialogs etc.), Forms, Reports.
To summarize we have ONE code for the application and declare constants for
each used language, as example (1) for English, (2) for Spanish, (3) for
Italien.
Menu and Messages are table driven. The records are identified by
menu-number/message number. Forms and Reports exists for each language and
are called by dynamicly command, which represent the used form/report,
followed by the language constant (Customer1 for customerform in English,
customer2 for customer form in Spanish, ..). You would be able to make even
the labels in forms and reports language dependent, but there would be some
problems with different length, performance, helptext and popups. Our
experience is, it's more easier to handle different forms and reports.
You will find the presentation and example of the conference either on our
homepage http://www.rbase.ch follow [RUG-CH] and click to multilingual
application example/presentation at the conferences line, or directly at
http://www.rbase.ch/documents/e/huessyExample.zip for example and (26KB for
RBase 6.5)
http://www.rbase.ch/documents/e/rbconfe.zip for the presentation (621KB
Powerpoint 97).
Pitfalls
- To maintain a multilingual application you have to be very strict and
disciplined in changing everything for each language, even if it seems not
nececcary at the moment.
- Think about different law in different countries, specially for tax if
your application makes invoices or calculations, best to isolate different
parts in different procedures with dynamic call (SET VAR vProcedure =
('CalcTax' + .vLanguageCode)).
- Think about different financial account systems and behavior.
- Make an online user manual (help or PDF), you have to update and
distribute very fast.
- Best thing is to have a employee which speak the target language and is in
the application involved (as user or developper).
- Proof how much english messages and dialogs are acceptable for your
Spanish customers, if no English is accepted at all, you have to make your
own workarounds (EDIT or BROWSE menus, ZOOM in notefields, Error-Messages,
Message leaving unsaved row 'Press Save to save your chances', DLL's, ..).
- Think about different papersize for report (US letter or A4)
But in any case, it's a pleasure to see a multilingual application running
on RBase!
Hope this helps. For further information don't hesitate to contact me.
Best Regards
Adrian Huessy
Huessy Engineering GmbH
Stadtturmstr. 13, CH-5401 Baden, Switzerland
Tel. (+41) 056 210 91 71, Fax (+41) 056 210 91 75
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Fleming [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Montag, 23. April 2001 02:30
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Multi-Lingual application
Dear Adrian,
Dr. Razzak mentioned on our RBase List server, that you made a presentation
last year on developing multi-lingual applications. It seems like a lot of
work, especially in the ongoing development and maintenance.
The length of column names in forms, reports, etc., will be different for
other languages, and the data values themselves will certainly vary. I
guess if you designed your system with "extra room" then it might not be so
bad.
Other than determining how much of a market there may or may not be for a
US program in another language, what are some of the other "pitfalls" you
encountered.
Thank you,
Dennis
*****
Dennis Fleming
IISCO
http://www.TheBestCMMS.com
