Localization Suite 2.0
The Blue Technologies Group has released a major update to its suite of tools for localization. In theory, localizing a Mac OS X application is simple, since the framework support for it is so good. However, incremental localization, keeping all of the languages up-to-date as you revise the application, can be a nightmare. I’ve written scripts to help with this, and tried a variety of tools, but I never really liked any of them. The tools saved time, but they were complex—with many options—and yet I couldn’t really make them fit in with my workflow. Localization Suite gets a bunch of things right:
- It’s simple to use, and the interface is clean. In most cases, all you need to do is click the Update Files button, and it does the right thing. It will regenerate whatever nibs need to be regenerated, preserving the localized layout and even the .svn folders. (I suggested this last bit to the developer; it not only makes it easy to commit the updated files, but it also lets you use svn st and svn diff to see what’s changed.)
- Strings are tracked by file and ID, rather than by the value of the key string. This means that it doesn’t get confused and mess things up if you edit the nibs after sending some strings off for translation. And it means that a given string can have different translations in different contexts.
- Rather than making you export strings that need translation as a glossary file, there’s a specialized viewer/editor application called Localizer. Translators can do their thing with a nice interface that shows the strings in context (showing the file name and even interface previews). Localizer makes it easy to see which strings need to be translated and which might need to be updated. You, the developer, don’t have to worry about fixing up the .plist or .strings syntax when you get the file back.
I’ve been using Localization Suite 2.0 in beta for about six months, and it’s already saved me many hours. This is a great piece of software, from a dedicated and responsive developer. Amazingly, it’s free, although grateful developers are encouraged to make a donation.
