Re: Multilanguage support in MFC application

From:

"Tom Serface" <tom.nospam@camaswood.com>

Newsgroups:

microsoft.public.vc.mfc

Date:

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:46:13 -0800

Message-ID:

<C20FA570-0E5C-4FAA-B3EB-E047E7F17216@microsoft.com>

Hi Mihai,

I agree that it is better to use a resource file. I almost always end up
resizing controls and dialogs (especially for Asian languages) after getting
files back from the translators. Some translators will do this kind of
resizing for you, but most just use a "robot" approach to translate the
words in place. Also, context is very important.

I have tried the text file approach several times including going to the
trouble of repositioning and resizing controls at run time and I almost
always get something that looks funny at some point. With resource files
you always know what you're going to get.

Tom

"Mihai N." <nmihai_year_2000@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:Xns98E4B935466EMihaiN@207.46.248.16...

Text files is really a bad idea.

Problems:
1. translation is more than text:
   - resizing
   - images, icons, sounds
   - fonts and font sizes
   - alignment (thing Arabic/Hebrew, where the whole UI gets mirrored)
2. same word can be translated differently depending on context
   for instance "Print" is translated into French as "Imprimer" or
   "Impression", depending if it is a command (ie button) or description
   (label, title).

The way to take advantage of repetitions is to use a localization tool
If you work with a localization company, they should charge less for
repetitions (most translation tools report the repetitions).
And yes, it is fair, and you have to pay for repetitions. A human has to
look
at the string and take a decision. Not full price, but it still costs
something.

--
Mihai Nita [Microsoft MVP, Windows - SDK]
http://www.mihai-nita.net
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