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1 | \section{Writing non-English applications}\label{nonenglishoverview} |
2 | ||
3 | This article describes how to write applications that communicate with | |
4 | user in language other than English. Unfortunately many languages use | |
5 | different charsets under Unix and Windows (and other platforms, to make | |
6 | situation even more complicated). These charsets usually differ in so | |
7 | many characters it is impossible to use same texts under all platforms. | |
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8 | |
9 | wxWindows library provides mechanism that helps you avoid distributing many | |
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10 | identical, only differently encoded, packages with your application |
11 | (e.g. help files and menu items in iso8859-13 and windows-1257). Thanks | |
f6bcfd97 | 12 | to this mechanism you can, for example, distribute only iso8859-13 data |
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13 | and it will be handled transparently under all systems. |
14 | ||
54cd4332 | 15 | Please read \helpref{Internationalization}{internationalization} which |
f6bcfd97 | 16 | describes the locales concept. |
9005a56e | 17 | |
f6bcfd97 | 18 | In the following text, wherever {\it iso8859-2} and {\it windows-1250} are |
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19 | used, any encodings are meant and any encodings may be substituted there. |
20 | ||
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21 | \wxheading{Locales} |
22 | ||
f6bcfd97 | 23 | The best way to ensure correctly displayed texts in a GUI across platforms |
54cd4332 | 24 | is to use locales. Write your in-code messages in English or without |
f6bcfd97 | 25 | diacritics and put real messages into the message catalog (see |
54cd4332 | 26 | \helpref{Internationalization}{internationalization}). |
9005a56e | 27 | |
f6bcfd97 | 28 | A standard .po file begins with a header like this: |
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29 | |
30 | \begin{verbatim} | |
31 | # SOME DESCRIPTIVE TITLE. | |
32 | # Copyright (C) YEAR Free Software Foundation, Inc. | |
33 | # FIRST AUTHOR <EMAIL@ADDRESS>, YEAR. | |
34 | # | |
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35 | msgid "" |
36 | msgstr "" | |
37 | "Project-Id-Version: PACKAGE VERSION\n" | |
38 | "POT-Creation-Date: 1999-02-19 16:03+0100\n" | |
39 | "PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n" | |
40 | "Last-Translator: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n" | |
41 | "Language-Team: LANGUAGE <LL@li.org>\n" | |
42 | "MIME-Version: 1.0\n" | |
43 | "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=CHARSET\n" | |
44 | "Content-Transfer-Encoding: ENCODING\n" | |
45 | \end{verbatim} | |
46 | ||
ae71a6e8 | 47 | Note this particular line: |
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48 | |
49 | \begin{verbatim} | |
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50 | "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=CHARSET\n" |
51 | \end{verbatim} | |
52 | ||
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53 | It specifies the charset used by the catalog. All strings in the catalog |
54 | are encoded using this charset. | |
54cd4332 | 55 | |
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56 | You have to fill in proper charset information. Your .po file may look like this |
57 | after doing so: | |
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58 | |
59 | \begin{verbatim} | |
60 | # SOME DESCRIPTIVE TITLE. | |
61 | # Copyright (C) YEAR Free Software Foundation, Inc. | |
62 | # FIRST AUTHOR <EMAIL@ADDRESS>, YEAR. | |
63 | # | |
64 | msgid "" | |
65 | msgstr "" | |
66 | "Project-Id-Version: PACKAGE VERSION\n" | |
67 | "POT-Creation-Date: 1999-02-19 16:03+0100\n" | |
68 | "PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n" | |
69 | "Last-Translator: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n" | |
70 | "Language-Team: LANGUAGE <LL@li.org>\n" | |
71 | "MIME-Version: 1.0\n" | |
72 | "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso8859-2\n" | |
07e285be | 73 | "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n" |
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74 | \end{verbatim} |
75 | ||
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76 | (Make sure that the header is {\bf not} marked as {\it fuzzy}.) |
77 | ||
54cd4332 | 78 | wxWindows is able to use this catalog under any supported platform |
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79 | (although iso8859-2 is a Unix encoding and is normally not understood by |
80 | Windows). | |
54cd4332 | 81 | |
f6bcfd97 | 82 | How is this done? When you tell the wxLocale class to load a message catalog that |
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83 | contains correct header, it checks the charset. The catalog is then converted |
84 | to the charset used (see | |
85 | \helpref{wxLocale::GetSystemEncoding}{wxlocalegetsystemencoding} and | |
86 | \helpref{wxLocale::GetSystemEncodingName}{wxlocalegetsystemencodingname}) by | |
87 | user's operating system. This is default behaviour of the | |
88 | \helpref{wxLocale}{wxlocale} class; you can disable it by {\bf not} passing | |
89 | {\tt wxLOCALE\_CONV\_ENCODING} to \helpref{wxLocale::Init}{wxlocaleinit}. | |
9005a56e | 90 | |
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91 | \wxheading{Font mapping} |
92 | ||
528e0faf | 93 | You can use \helpref{wxEncodingConverter}{wxencodingconverter} and |
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94 | \helpref{wxFontMapper}{wxfontmapper} to display text: |
95 | ||
96 | \begin{verbatim} | |
97 | if (!wxTheFontMapper->IsEncodingAvailable(enc, facename)) | |
98 | { | |
99 | wxFontEncoding alternative; | |
100 | if (wxTheFontMapper->GetAltForEncoding(enc, &alternative, | |
101 | facename, FALSE)) | |
102 | { | |
103 | wxEncodingConverted encconv; | |
104 | if (!encconv.Init(enc, alternative)) | |
105 | ...failure... | |
106 | else | |
107 | text = encconv.Convert(text); | |
108 | } | |
109 | else | |
110 | ...failure... | |
111 | } | |
112 | ...display text... | |
113 | \end{verbatim} | |
114 | ||
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115 | \wxheading{Converting data} |
116 | ||
117 | You may want to store all program data (created documents etc.) in | |
f6bcfd97 | 118 | the same encoding, let's say windows1250. Obviously, the best way would |
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119 | be to use \helpref{wxEncodingConverter}{wxencodingconverter}. |
120 | ||
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121 | \wxheading{Help files} |
122 | ||
123 | If you're using \helpref{wxHtmlHelpController}{wxhtmlhelpcontroller} there is | |
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124 | no problem at all. You must only make sure that all the HTML files contain |
125 | the META tag, e.g. | |
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126 | |
127 | \begin{verbatim} | |
ea129d33 | 128 | <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso8859-2"> |
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129 | \end{verbatim} |
130 | ||
f6bcfd97 | 131 | and that the hhp project file contains one additional line in the {\tt OPTIONS} |
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132 | section: |
133 | ||
134 | \begin{verbatim} | |
135 | Charset=iso8859-2 | |
136 | \end{verbatim} | |
137 | ||
f6bcfd97 | 138 | This additional entry tells the HTML help controller what encoding is used |
9005a56e | 139 | in contents and index tables. |
457e6c54 | 140 |