Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Hi Dave I've done quite a few muiltilanguage sites, including Chinese and Korean. The way I've tackled this in the past is to load the fonts from an external SWF at run-time, using shared runtime libraries. It's a bit of a roundabout method, and if a single part of the process is not done correctly, it will fail (silently of course!) and you will not see any text rendered. But it's worth it! You can use Shared Fonts Manager, where the process is documented here: http://sharedfonts.com/eng/help.html The Shared Fonts Manager itself just helps you manage the fonts, and you can use the same method with your own management if you don't want to use the product, your choice. When you get it to work it means you can paste all your chinese copy into the font library FLA, use autofill, then only embed the characters you need. In my experience this leads to a total of no more than 500KB of font data for Chinese (and you only need to load that when the site is actually displayed in Chinese). It also has the benefit of only having to load the fonts once, even if your site is spread across multiple SWFs. Hope that helps, Jake On 24/01/2008, Kerry Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'd think so, but it doesn't seem to be the case. In my interface for example, I need to support Chinese simplified and traditional - and in my tests some characters are not appearing if I just choose the traditional level 1 support. So I need to include support for both which is like 18,000 glyphs. For some reason traditional is 5609 glyphs and 'simplified' is 13000+. Simple my ass. Yeah, I was surprised at the number of characters in the Level 1 Simplified. There should be fewer--part of Mao's simplification was combining words that were pronounced the same but had different characters in traditional Chinese. For example, hou (4th tone) can mean empress or behind, depending on the character. In traditional Chinese, there are two characters, while simplified Chinese uses just one for both. Hmmm - a thought... maybe I can just do the 5609 and then add in missing characters as needed. So far, there only a couple that are not showing if I use only the level 1 support. I doubt that will work for simplified. Not only were characters combined, a lot of characters were simplified to use fewer strokes. For example, my Chinese name, Tan, is actually a combination of 3 characters (not unusual). The one on the left, called the radical, is 2 strokes in simplified Chinese, and 7 strokes in traditional. Other characters, like those for door and country also use far fewer strokes in simplified Chinese. So just using the traditional character set and filling in probably won't do it for you. You'll probably end up displaying traditional characters (actually called complicated-body characters in Chinese), which some people in Singapore and mainland China won't be able to read. It's not optimal, I know, and the file will be bigger than you want. Maybe you could have them choose the language up front, then load a swf with just the right character set embedded. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
We had some blocks aswell.. even after embedding the right sets.. Found out that some characters were missing.. even in arial.. for some countries.. We solved it by using a font program.. then you see list of all the characters that are available(unicode wise) .. and you could copy-from-another-font or create the missing character.. Hope this helps.. With kind regards, Dennis Isioux - Original Message - From: Dave Mennenoh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Flash Coders List flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 3:59 PM Subject: Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage It's essential that you use a Unicode font--I use Arial Unicode for Asian languages, because it has all the languages I typically need. Embed the font, of course. Gotcha. This is fairly new to me so I've been reading as much as I can. I found that true type fonts, like regular Arial, adhere to Unicode standards. In Flash, if I use Arial I can embed Korean (Hangul), and a few different Chinese glyphs. However, I cannot see the incoming UTF-8 encoded chinese text from my XML. Russian and all my other languages are working fine. But I get squares when trying to display Chinese or Korean, even though the glyphs are embedded for both. Hmmm... do I need a different font (Arial 'Unicode') or am I doing something wrong? Thanks much. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders __ NOD32 2818 (20080123) Informatie __ Dit bericht is gecontroleerd door het NOD32 Antivirus Systeem. http://www.nod32.nl ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
You can use simsun ttf for rendering chinese glyfs -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Mennenoh Sent: 23 January 2008 15:00 To: Flash Coders List Subject: Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage It's essential that you use a Unicode font--I use Arial Unicode for Asian languages, because it has all the languages I typically need. Embed the font, of course. Gotcha. This is fairly new to me so I've been reading as much as I can. I found that true type fonts, like regular Arial, adhere to Unicode standards. In Flash, if I use Arial I can embed Korean (Hangul), and a few different Chinese glyphs. However, I cannot see the incoming UTF-8 encoded chinese text from my XML. Russian and all my other languages are working fine. But I get squares when trying to display Chinese or Korean, even though the glyphs are embedded for both. Hmmm... do I need a different font (Arial 'Unicode') or am I doing something wrong? Thanks much. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders __ This e-mail has been scanned for viruses by the Virtual Universe e-mail security system - powered by MessageLabs. http://www.virtual-universe.net __ Virtual Universe Ltd, 28-39 The Quadrant, 135 Salusbury Road, London NW6 6RJ Tel: +44 (0) 870 788 6000 Fax: +44 (0) 870 788 6689 Web:www.virtual-universe.net - CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE This e-mail may contain information which is confidential and privileged. If you are not the named addressee of this e-mail, you may not copy or use it, or forward or otherwise disclose it to anyone else. If you have received this e-mail in error, please e-mail the sender by replying to this message and then fully delete it from your system. Any views or opinions presented in this e-mail are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Amplefuture Group. Amplefuture Group reserves the right to monitor e-mail communications from both external and internal sources for the purposes of ensuring correct and appropriate use of our communication equipment. __ This e-mail has been scanned for viruses by the Virtual Universe e-mail security system - powered by MessageLabs. http://www.virtual-universe.net ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Thanks much for the great advice. I'm getting there... However, soon as I include the Chinese glyphs my swf gets to near 5MB. Is there an easy way to embed only the chinese glyphs in a separate swf and load them only if needed? AS2... With Cryllic, Hangul, and everything else I get a respectable 300K, but the chinese adds too much to just leave it in. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
One solution would be to avoid embeding the chinese fonts if you could - depends on what you want for your project -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Mennenoh Sent: 24 January 2008 13:36 To: Flash Coders List Subject: Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage Thanks much for the great advice. I'm getting there... However, soon as I include the Chinese glyphs my swf gets to near 5MB. Is there an easy way to embed only the chinese glyphs in a separate swf and load them only if needed? AS2... With Cryllic, Hangul, and everything else I get a respectable 300K, but the chinese adds too much to just leave it in. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders __ This e-mail has been scanned for viruses by the Virtual Universe e-mail security system - powered by MessageLabs. http://www.virtual-universe.net __ Virtual Universe Ltd, 28-39 The Quadrant, 135 Salusbury Road, London NW6 6RJ Tel: +44 (0) 870 788 6000 Fax: +44 (0) 870 788 6689 Web:www.virtual-universe.net - CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE This e-mail may contain information which is confidential and privileged. If you are not the named addressee of this e-mail, you may not copy or use it, or forward or otherwise disclose it to anyone else. If you have received this e-mail in error, please e-mail the sender by replying to this message and then fully delete it from your system. Any views or opinions presented in this e-mail are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Amplefuture Group. Amplefuture Group reserves the right to monitor e-mail communications from both external and internal sources for the purposes of ensuring correct and appropriate use of our communication equipment. __ This e-mail has been scanned for viruses by the Virtual Universe e-mail security system - powered by MessageLabs. http://www.virtual-universe.net ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
One solution would be to avoid embeding the chinese fonts if you could - depends on what you want for your project Except I am embedding, so I can anti-alias. I'm not sure how I could embed all the other glyphs and have the chinese still render at all. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Check the viewed language and turn embedding on/off depending on whether its chinese? - you'd only see the chinese if you had the right font installed (e.g. simsun) but I believe this is the case on chinese machines. If course if your text was masked or animated then this wont work as dynamic text has to be embeded in these circumstances -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Mennenoh Sent: 24 January 2008 14:06 To: Flash Coders List Subject: Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage One solution would be to avoid embeding the chinese fonts if you could - depends on what you want for your project Except I am embedding, so I can anti-alias. I'm not sure how I could embed all the other glyphs and have the chinese still render at all. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders __ This e-mail has been scanned for viruses by the Virtual Universe e-mail security system - powered by MessageLabs. http://www.virtual-universe.net __ Virtual Universe Ltd, 28-39 The Quadrant, 135 Salusbury Road, London NW6 6RJ Tel: +44 (0) 870 788 6000 Fax: +44 (0) 870 788 6689 Web:www.virtual-universe.net - CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE This e-mail may contain information which is confidential and privileged. If you are not the named addressee of this e-mail, you may not copy or use it, or forward or otherwise disclose it to anyone else. If you have received this e-mail in error, please e-mail the sender by replying to this message and then fully delete it from your system. Any views or opinions presented in this e-mail are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Amplefuture Group. Amplefuture Group reserves the right to monitor e-mail communications from both external and internal sources for the purposes of ensuring correct and appropriate use of our communication equipment. __ This e-mail has been scanned for viruses by the Virtual Universe e-mail security system - powered by MessageLabs. http://www.virtual-universe.net ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
You can use simsun ttf for rendering chinese glyfs I think that is a standard font--it's installed on my Vista system--but it doesn't have Hangul (Korean) characters. We should probably be aware of the terminology we're using--glyph and character aren't interchangeable. A character--take the Roman e for example--can be written in many different ways and still be recognizable. A particular rendering of that e in Arial, Simsun, Helvitica, Times New Roman, etc., are glyphs. So when we say simsun has Chinese glyphs, we are saying simsun has glyphs for Chinese characters. I double-checked, and Arial Unicode MS does have Korean characters. The Arial installed on my system does not. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Dave Mennenoh wrote: Thanks much for the great advice. I'm getting there... However, soon as I include the Chinese glyphs my swf gets to near 5MB. Is there an easy way to embed only the chinese glyphs in a separate swf and load them only if needed? AS2... With Cryllic, Hangul, and everything else I get a respectable 300K, but the chinese adds too much to just leave it in. Ok, it's time to admit it--I speak Chinese (Mandarin). Cyrillic and Hangul are phonetic character sets, and don't have that many characters. Cyrillic is small enough to be a single-byte set, in fact, the same as English. Hangul has more than 256 characters, but not nearly as many as Chinese. To be able to read a Chinese newspaper, you need to know about 2,500 characters (compared with 26 in English). A college-educated Chinese speaker will probably know about 5,000 characters, and a scholar may know as many as 8,000-10,000. That's a lot of characters. Then you add in the fact that there are two versions of Chinese characters (traditional and simplified), you have a lot of characters. Still, 5MB sounds like a lot. I think there are options for installing a subset. In CS3 on Windows Vista, I see options for Level 1 (5609 glyphs) and all (18,439 glyphs) for traditional Chinese. There are the same options for simplified, with different numbers. Can you get by with just the Level 1 characters? I'm guessing you probably can. Those 5,000+ characters are probably enough, unless you're doing something really specialized. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Can you get by with just the Level 1 characters? I'm guessing you probably can. Those 5,000+ characters are probably enough, unless you're doing something really specialized. I'd think so, but it doesn't seem to be the case. In my interface for example, I need to support Chinese simplified and traditional - and in my tests some characters are not appearing if I just choose the traditional level 1 support. So I need to include support for both which is like 18,000 glyphs. For some reason traditional is 5609 glyphs and 'simplified' is 13000+. Simple my ass. Hmmm - a thought... maybe I can just do the 5609 and then add in missing characters as needed. So far, there only a couple that are not showing if I use only the level 1 support. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
I'd think so, but it doesn't seem to be the case. In my interface for example, I need to support Chinese simplified and traditional - and in my tests some characters are not appearing if I just choose the traditional level 1 support. So I need to include support for both which is like 18,000 glyphs. For some reason traditional is 5609 glyphs and 'simplified' is 13000+. Simple my ass. Yeah, I was surprised at the number of characters in the Level 1 Simplified. There should be fewer--part of Mao's simplification was combining words that were pronounced the same but had different characters in traditional Chinese. For example, hou (4th tone) can mean empress or behind, depending on the character. In traditional Chinese, there are two characters, while simplified Chinese uses just one for both. Hmmm - a thought... maybe I can just do the 5609 and then add in missing characters as needed. So far, there only a couple that are not showing if I use only the level 1 support. I doubt that will work for simplified. Not only were characters combined, a lot of characters were simplified to use fewer strokes. For example, my Chinese name, Tan, is actually a combination of 3 characters (not unusual). The one on the left, called the radical, is 2 strokes in simplified Chinese, and 7 strokes in traditional. Other characters, like those for door and country also use far fewer strokes in simplified Chinese. So just using the traditional character set and filling in probably won't do it for you. You'll probably end up displaying traditional characters (actually called complicated-body characters in Chinese), which some people in Singapore and mainland China won't be able to read. It's not optimal, I know, and the file will be bigger than you want. Maybe you could have them choose the language up front, then load a swf with just the right character set embedded. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Little update - I guess it is the font. I tried Lucida Sans Unicode and now the Chinese displays OK. However the Korean still shows boxes... Geez. I was hoping to not have to buy the Arial Unicode font, it's not on my system... Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Dave Mennenoh wrote: Little update - I guess it is the font. I tried Lucida Sans Unicode and now the Chinese displays OK. However the Korean still shows boxes... Geez. I was hoping to not have to buy the Arial Unicode font, it's not on my system... Microsoft claims that Arial Unicode comes installed with XP, but we have found that's not the case. We ended up buying a license. Maybe if we had pushed MS enough we would have gotten the font they claim is installed, but it wasn't worth the time and effort for us. We did have good luck with CCJK when we embedded Arial Unicode, though. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
It's essential that you use a Unicode font--I use Arial Unicode for Asian languages, because it has all the languages I typically need. Embed the font, of course. Gotcha. This is fairly new to me so I've been reading as much as I can. I found that true type fonts, like regular Arial, adhere to Unicode standards. In Flash, if I use Arial I can embed Korean (Hangul), and a few different Chinese glyphs. However, I cannot see the incoming UTF-8 encoded chinese text from my XML. Russian and all my other languages are working fine. But I get squares when trying to display Chinese or Korean, even though the glyphs are embedded for both. Hmmm... do I need a different font (Arial 'Unicode') or am I doing something wrong? Thanks much. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Dave Mennenoh wrote: Gotcha. This is fairly new to me so I've been reading as much as I can. I found that true type fonts, like regular Arial, adhere to Unicode standards. In Flash, if I use Arial I can embed Korean (Hangul), and a few different Chinese glyphs. However, I cannot see the incoming UTF-8 encoded chinese text from my XML. Russian and all my other languages are working fine. But I get squares when trying to display Chinese or Korean, even though the glyphs are embedded for both. Hmmm... do I need a different font (Arial 'Unicode') or am I doing something wrong? A font may adhere to Unicode standards, but it doesn't necessarily have glyphs for all languages. I'm not entirely sure, but it's quite possible that Arial doesn't have Hangul (Korean) glyphs--from what you're describing, it sounds like it doesn't. I don't know for sure, but I do know that Arial Unicode does. There are a lot of languages, and a lot of different character sets--Roman (basically European), Cyrillic, Greek, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Arabic, Farsi, Sanskrit--you get the idea. The Arial that's installed on your English machine may not support all the languages defined by Unicode. I'm actually not sure that any font does--if you were developing a font, would you include Khmer and Tibetan? (That's not an idle question--I helped localize the Radio Free Asia Web site years ago, and we included Khmer, Lao, Tibetan, Vietnamese, and of course Chinese and Korean). To me, everything points to yes, you are doing everything right, except perhaps using the right font. Or, possibly, if you're embedding the font, you simply need to include the Korean characters. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Thanks again for all the advice. Pete, I definitely like that shared fonts tip. I have one more question - Chinese and Korean seem to be the only stickers on this one. However I installed the east asian language support for XP. I then went to BabelFish and translated Hello into Chinese simp, and then copy/pasted into Flash. Worked a treat - where before I installed support it just pasted rubbish. The swf shows the chinese properly on another machine in the office as well - a Vista machine. Haven't tried it elsewhere but so far so good. Any tips here are most appreciated. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
I have one more question - Chinese and Korean seem to be the only stickers on this one. However I installed the east asian language support for XP. I then went to BabelFish and translated Hello into Chinese simp, and then copy/pasted into Flash. Worked a treat - where before I installed support it just pasted rubbish. The swf shows the chinese properly on another machine in the office as well - a Vista machine. Haven't tried it elsewhere but so far so good. Any tips here are most appreciated. It's essential that you use a Unicode font--I use Arial Unicode for Asian languages, because it has all the languages I typically need. Embed the font, of course. I've done a lot of localization, and I can tell you a couple things you will find regarding size. English is a fairly compact language, and Romanic languages will expand about 10% over English. German will expand the most, up to 150% the size of the English. There's no hard and fast rule for Asian languages, but Chinese and Korean tend to be more compact, and Japanese the least. That's partly because the Japanese use three character sets--Chinese (kanji), katakana, and hiragana. You will probably find Roman characters in the Asian languages, too--numerals, if nothing else. Other than the occasional Roman character, Chinese uses only the Chinese ideograms, and Korean uses mostly Hangul, a phonetic script, though you will sometimes find Chinese characters in Korean as well. Be sure you have a native-level speaker proof your work. Even if the translation is correct, string methods like split(), join(), substr(), and the like can trip you up. I lost a job once because I spotted some errors in the Chinese version in the GMC candidate stage--errors caused by string splitting. It wasn't even my code, but the owner was furious with me because I made his company look bad. I guess they would have rather let the client ship an error-filled product rather than look bad. Can't say I was too unhappy to leave that company. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
[Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
I may be doing an app that has to be deployed in various languages, and I'm trying to find a good method of doing it. I guess my main issue is that the interface is Flash, and would be created by a designer. Content is pretty much all external, but things like button text, tool tip text, etc. are put in place by the designer. I'd thought of just making different interface 'shells' for the various languages, but that'd be more difficult to maintain. What'd be perfect is language plugins but then I'm not quite sure on how to handle sizing problems - especially with certain languages like chinese. Just looking for some guidance. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Hi Dave, I would ask the designer to put all the text in dynamic textFields (and fill them w3ith dummy text). You can than adress these TextFields and fill them with text from a database at runtime, depending on a 'language' flag. HTH, Willem van den Goorbergh Op 21-jan-2008, om 13:26 heeft Dave Mennenoh het volgende geschreven: I may be doing an app that has to be deployed in various languages, and I'm trying to find a good method of doing it. I guess my main issue is that the interface is Flash, and would be created by a designer. Content is pretty much all external, but things like button text, tool tip text, etc. are put in place by the designer. I'd thought of just making different interface 'shells' for the various languages, but that'd be more difficult to maintain. What'd be perfect is language plugins but then I'm not quite sure on how to handle sizing problems - especially with certain languages like chinese. Just looking for some guidance. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Geografiek is a Dutch, Utrecht-based map and chart design company. Willem van den Goorbergh can be contacted by telephone: (+31) 30-2719512 or cell phone: (+31)6-26372378 or by fax: (+31)302719687 snail mail: Hooghiemstraplein 89 3514 AX UTRECHT Visit our website at: http://www.geografiek.nl =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Hi, Look at using the Strings Panel - it's in FL8, probably in CS3. This lets you attach an ID to all your text fields, etc. and define languages in XML. The help has more in depth stuff about this, but that is a good start. You may also want to ensure all your translation is done before the designer starts, otherwise they might start getting stressed when you ask them to resize a button for German, etc. Glen Geografiek wrote: Hi Dave, I would ask the designer to put all the text in dynamic textFields (and fill them w3ith dummy text). You can than adress these TextFields and fill them with text from a database at runtime, depending on a 'language' flag. HTH, Willem van den Goorbergh Op 21-jan-2008, om 13:26 heeft Dave Mennenoh het volgende geschreven: I may be doing an app that has to be deployed in various languages, and I'm trying to find a good method of doing it. I guess my main issue is that the interface is Flash, and would be created by a designer. Content is pretty much all external, but things like button text, tool tip text, etc. are put in place by the designer. I'd thought of just making different interface 'shells' for the various languages, but that'd be more difficult to maintain. What'd be perfect is language plugins but then I'm not quite sure on how to handle sizing problems - especially with certain languages like chinese. Just looking for some guidance. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Geografiek is a Dutch, Utrecht-based map and chart design company. Willem van den Goorbergh can be contacted by telephone: (+31)30-2719512 or cell phone: (+31)6-26372378 or by fax: (+31)302719687 snail mail: Hooghiemstraplein 89 3514 AX UTRECHT Visit our website at: http://www.geografiek.nl =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders -- Glen Pike 01736 759321 www.glenpike.co.uk http://www.glenpike.co.uk ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Right, thanks. I realize that, my concern is still sizing issues though. This will be an app that is 'pretty' it has nice looking buttons and such. If everything could be scrollable text fields I would have no problem. Consider something as something as simple as 'stop', which is something like 'anschlag' in german. Doubling the character count in a field can make a big diff for formatting... Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
I agree with Glen on the stringpanel part. I've done a big project in the past with multilanguage games.. stringpanel is a good start.. although if you want to give the user the possibility to select the language at runtime you had to code that yourself into the panel.. (that was made back in flash 7 though.. might be in there right now) .. Translating it on forhand isn't always an option.. somtimes the product gets popular and a new country/language is added.. The way we did it is to keep space for larger languages in the design.. and if it isn't possible to translate it shorter.. it will always be a pain in the @ss.. but there should be a balance to keep the designer/design happy and the translations/translators good.. We made an extra panel to add character sets to all textfields on the press of a button.. this way it is easier to add a new character set. Hope this helps.. With kind regards, Dennis Isioux - Original Message - From: Glen Pike [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Flash Coders List flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 2:01 PM Subject: Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage Hi, Look at using the Strings Panel - it's in FL8, probably in CS3. This lets you attach an ID to all your text fields, etc. and define languages in XML. The help has more in depth stuff about this, but that is a good start. You may also want to ensure all your translation is done before the designer starts, otherwise they might start getting stressed when you ask them to resize a button for German, etc. Glen Geografiek wrote: Hi Dave, I would ask the designer to put all the text in dynamic textFields (and fill them w3ith dummy text). You can than adress these TextFields and fill them with text from a database at runtime, depending on a 'language' flag. HTH, Willem van den Goorbergh Op 21-jan-2008, om 13:26 heeft Dave Mennenoh het volgende geschreven: I may be doing an app that has to be deployed in various languages, and I'm trying to find a good method of doing it. I guess my main issue is that the interface is Flash, and would be created by a designer. Content is pretty much all external, but things like button text, tool tip text, etc. are put in place by the designer. I'd thought of just making different interface 'shells' for the various languages, but that'd be more difficult to maintain. What'd be perfect is language plugins but then I'm not quite sure on how to handle sizing problems - especially with certain languages like chinese. Just looking for some guidance. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Geografiek is a Dutch, Utrecht-based map and chart design company. Willem van den Goorbergh can be contacted by telephone: (+31)30-2719512 or cell phone: (+31)6-26372378 or by fax: (+31)302719687 snail mail: Hooghiemstraplein 89 3514 AX UTRECHT Visit our website at: http://www.geografiek.nl =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders -- Glen Pike 01736 759321 www.glenpike.co.uk http://www.glenpike.co.uk ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Failing all that just code your own buttons using scale-9 so they can stretch to fit the text... ... If that seems like hard work, maybe the project should be done in Flex which has a localisation API and a framework specifically designed to handle this sort of dynamically changing interface -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dennis - I Sioux Sent: 21 January 2008 13:36 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Flash Coders List Subject: Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage I agree with Glen on the stringpanel part. I've done a big project in the past with multilanguage games.. stringpanel is a good start.. although if you want to give the user the possibility to select the language at runtime you had to code that yourself into the panel.. (that was made back in flash 7 though.. might be in there right now) .. Translating it on forhand isn't always an option.. somtimes the product gets popular and a new country/language is added.. The way we did it is to keep space for larger languages in the design.. and if it isn't possible to translate it shorter.. it will always be a pain in the @ss.. but there should be a balance to keep the designer/design happy and the translations/translators good.. We made an extra panel to add character sets to all textfields on the press of a button.. this way it is easier to add a new character set. Hope this helps.. With kind regards, Dennis Isioux - Original Message - From: Glen Pike [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Flash Coders List flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 2:01 PM Subject: Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage Hi, Look at using the Strings Panel - it's in FL8, probably in CS3. This lets you attach an ID to all your text fields, etc. and define languages in XML. The help has more in depth stuff about this, but that is a good start. You may also want to ensure all your translation is done before the designer starts, otherwise they might start getting stressed when you ask them to resize a button for German, etc. Glen Geografiek wrote: Hi Dave, I would ask the designer to put all the text in dynamic textFields (and fill them w3ith dummy text). You can than adress these TextFields and fill them with text from a database at runtime, depending on a 'language' flag. HTH, Willem van den Goorbergh Op 21-jan-2008, om 13:26 heeft Dave Mennenoh het volgende geschreven: I may be doing an app that has to be deployed in various languages, and I'm trying to find a good method of doing it. I guess my main issue is that the interface is Flash, and would be created by a designer. Content is pretty much all external, but things like button text, tool tip text, etc. are put in place by the designer. I'd thought of just making different interface 'shells' for the various languages, but that'd be more difficult to maintain. What'd be perfect is language plugins but then I'm not quite sure on how to handle sizing problems - especially with certain languages like chinese. Just looking for some guidance. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Geografiek is a Dutch, Utrecht-based map and chart design company. Willem van den Goorbergh can be contacted by telephone: (+31)30-2719512 or cell phone: (+31)6-26372378 or by fax: (+31)302719687 snail mail: Hooghiemstraplein 89 3514 AX UTRECHT Visit our website at: http://www.geografiek.nl =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders -- Glen Pike 01736 759321 www.glenpike.co.uk http://www.glenpike.co.uk ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders __ This e-mail has been scanned for viruses by the Virtual Universe e-mail security system - powered by MessageLabs. http://www.virtual-universe.net __ Virtual Universe Ltd, 28-39 The Quadrant, 135 Salusbury Road, London NW6 6RJ Tel: +44 (0) 870 788 6000 Fax: +44 (0) 870 788 6689 Web:www.virtual-universe.net - CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE This e-mail may contain information which is confidential and privileged. If you are not the named addressee of this e-mail, you may not copy or use it, or forward or otherwise disclose it to anyone else. If you have
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Thanks for all the suggestions. I have thought of Flex, but have not used before, so I wouldn't feel comfortable. I like the idea of just leaving room in the design. Some testing will be required, but this may work. Anyone recommend a good translation service? It may be upwards of eight languages - but it's not a lot of text... I think the Help will be the most - much of it will be single words used for buttons. Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage
Dave I've lost count of the number of apps like this we've worked on. There are several issues here to address that are wider reaching than just TextFormatting. Firstly you need to think about the character sets each of the various versions will need for deployment. Are all of your required versions only going to require Latin characters ? What about Crylic and other more complicated requirements ? Your choice of typeface (and available character sets) will could be limiting unless you plan carefully. After all there's no point over-weighting a .swf file with characters your not going to use. Look at shared fonts as your best solution to this. By loading an external .SWF file with the required font, and/or font nodes you can dynamically change the display at run-time, negating the need to re-compile the file for each version. From the storage of content - I'd always recommend to run with XML. Makes it soo much easier to change elements at runtime than the flash panel which relies on the end user being able to re-compile the flash. In terms of the language variations affecting design - this one ultimately comes down to educating the creative to design/produce a framework which allows for flexibility. If you need customised 'pretty' buttons then build them as extensions of the components (or custom ones from scratch) that will automatically size where needed. Pete -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Mennenoh Sent: 21 January 2008 13:00 To: Flash Coders List Subject: Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage Right, thanks. I realize that, my concern is still sizing issues though. This will be an app that is 'pretty' it has nice looking buttons and such. If everything could be scrollable text fields I would have no problem. Consider something as something as simple as 'stop', which is something like 'anschlag' in german. Doubling the character count in a field can make a big diff for formatting... Dave - Head Developer http://www.blurredistinction.com Adobe Community Expert http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders __ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email __ ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
[Flashcoders] MultiLanguage Character support
I'm currently working on a mini application that will be importing all it's text from an XML source. It needs to work in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. This combination of characters makes for an interesting problem. I don't think there is one font that includes all those characters!?!? Any advice on how to ensure the display of all characters? The designer chose to go with Univers Condensed, but it does not include all the chars I need to display. Should I use _sans or is there another option available to me. I'm building this using Flash Pro 8, and will publish to Flash 7. Thanks! -r __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com To change your subscription options or search the archive: http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders Brought to you by Fig Leaf Software Premier Authorized Adobe Consulting and Training http://www.figleaf.com http://training.figleaf.com
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage Character support
Arial Unicode MS font covers almost the whole Unicode 2.1 character ranges, but it is more than 20MB. It the size matters then use device fonts. Attila ___ Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com To change your subscription options or search the archive: http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders Brought to you by Fig Leaf Software Premier Authorized Adobe Consulting and Training http://www.figleaf.com http://training.figleaf.com
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage Character support
Tahoma works for Windows machines too. Again, you have to use device fonts, or else your swf is going to be HGE. --- Rey Peralta [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm currently working on a mini application that will be importing all it's text from an XML source. It needs to work in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. This combination of characters makes for an interesting problem. I don't think there is one font that includes all those characters!?!? Any advice on how to ensure the display of all characters? The designer chose to go with Univers Condensed, but it does not include all the chars I need to display. Should I use _sans or is there another option available to me. I'm building this using Flash Pro 8, and will publish to Flash 7. Thanks! -r __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com To change your subscription options or search the archive: http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders Brought to you by Fig Leaf Software Premier Authorized Adobe Consulting and Training http://www.figleaf.com http://training.figleaf.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com To change your subscription options or search the archive: http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders Brought to you by Fig Leaf Software Premier Authorized Adobe Consulting and Training http://www.figleaf.com http://training.figleaf.com
Re: [Flashcoders] MultiLanguage Character support
On Jan 5, 2007, at 12:07 PM, Rey Peralta wrote: I'm currently working on a mini application that will be importing all it's text from an XML source. It needs to work in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. This combination of characters makes for an interesting problem. I don't think there is one font that includes all those characters!?!? Any advice on how to ensure the display of all characters? The designer chose to go with Univers Condensed, but it does not include all the chars I need to display. Should I use _sans or is there another option available to me. Hi Does this application need to display all the languages at the same time? I think the easiest is using _sans and let the user's computer provide the correct match. For a project I did, initially they wanted to a quick toggle button to switch languages on on the dime. But it proved problematic so separate SWFs were published with the associated font embedded. (You can leave linkage name the same, just change the font that is is associated with. Of course embedding Japanese will add at least 1MB to your file as others have mentioned.) I think you can embed fonts into separate swfs, like en.swf, jp.swf, etc, for sharing and load it as needed. But for me, using assets that are shared was always a nightmare so I gave up. It may have improved now, I'm not sure. Not sure how much experience you have with multilingual things, but one gotcha to be wary of is that while a layout looks nice with english words, words in other languages are longer or shorter and won't look as nice, IMO. You may need to simply load a set of jpgs (especially for headers which, agreeably, requires pixel perfect letter spacing and other treatments). -robert ___ Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com To change your subscription options or search the archive: http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders Brought to you by Fig Leaf Software Premier Authorized Adobe Consulting and Training http://www.figleaf.com http://training.figleaf.com
[Flashcoders] multilanguage xliff fformat
Anyone out there done any multilanguage Flash applications (specifically closed captioning) and used the xliff format? I noticed that if you're using the Strings Panel in Flash that xliff is required. I don't intend to use the Strings Panel, but wondered if theres any consensus out there about using xliff. Any experience / thoughts would be appreciated. Regards, Brooks ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
[Flashcoders] Multilanguage sites
I've been approached to put together a site which will ultimately have 10 language variations (some of which dont use the latin alphabet). Were thinking XML driven content for a start, but what are the major pitfals to look out for when putting a multilanguage site togehter. I've done some top level research and figure theres goingto be issues with character sets etc. Does anyone have any links to good resources or advice to give ? Thanks in advance Daniel ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] Multilanguage sites
Make sure you encode your XML as UTF-8, if possible, write a good schema for your data format (this is not easy) and if file size is a serious consideration(which it always is), Keep in mind that you can use compression on your XML, pretty much all browsers support it. ryanm ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
