Thank you all for the replies.
Here's my final plan:
(1) Have separate nibs for each language. I agree with those that say you
cannot have a one-size-fits-all layout. Each nib will thus carry layout, font
size, style, etc. that makes sense for a particular language.
I've already "pseudo-localized" the nibs to hopefully address 90% plus of any
truncation issues.
(2) Externalize all strings from the nibs and put them into
Localizable.strings. This allows me to have a single file to hand off to
translators. I can also group like-items together and fill in nice contextual
comments.
Nibs will still contain text for buttons, etc. but will all be in the form {s}
(a string wrapped in curly braces).
(3) For runtime creation of fonts (e.g. boldSystemFontOfSize), call into my
special "Font" factory. I ended up creating a "fonts.plist" localized file.
Each version will contain two attributes per key (font size and whether or not
its bold). At runtime, I now read in the appropriate plist and gather the
metrics for the fonts I need to create.
(4) Leverage my existing automated-test infrastructure to do a full product
walkthrough (setting up proper data along the way) and generating screen-shots.
Such screen shots can now be viewed by the localization company's "QA" team to
ensure all text is valid within its context.
Furthermore, the "walkthrough" script will mine all text on the screen and look
for curly braces. That will mean that either an outlet isn't connected or its
localized string key is either missing or malformed.
The walkthrough script will also be generating HTML files (which will provide
links to all screenshots). This will allow everyone to view screenshots
side-by-side (comparing original English to a second language)
Finally, here's some other things I have already done to ensure translation
will be as smooth as possible:
* No plural forms (while allowing plurals can be handled, it's not worth the
effort IMO)
* No fragmented sentences (i.e. pieces of sentences across multiple UI elements)
* No hardcoded ordering of parameters. i.e. template strings like "Blah {0}
blah {1}." may be "{1} blah blah {0}" in other languages. Each placeholder is
always matched to the appropriate vararg argument.
___________________________________________________________
Ricky A. Sharp mailto:[email protected]
Instant Interactive(tm) http://www.instantinteractive.com
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