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Here is a compact yet deep technical
exploration of how to localize Windows 8 RT apps.
Related topics elsewhere on this same website (WilsonMar.com):
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Globalization, Internationlization, and Localization
First, let's define the differences between these words.
Globalization
Internationlization for Windows Phone 7
Internationlization for Windows 8
WARNING:
Each project is separately enabled for globalization.
DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL:
Multilingual App Toolkit.exe
(3.0 MB, English)
is installed to extend Visual Studio 2012 with localization tools
for building Metro style apps in additional languages
by providing translation support,
translation file management,
and editor tools.
DO THIS:
Within your app's Tools menu, select "Enable Multilingual App Toolkit".
This makes HTML parsing to look for localization mark-up.
DO THIS:
In Visual Studio open
SAMPLE:
Application resources and localization sample
shows how to use application resources to separate localizable content from application code.
DO THIS:
Edit the default.js file to include the WinJS Res.js toolkit in a script tag in HTML.
add an event handler for the DOMContentLoaded event
that calls WinJS.Resources.processAll() to load resource files.
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", WinJS.Resources.processAll(), false);
processAll() scans the DOM for data-win-attribute and processes it to create the component.
So it can be called any point after the DOM is completely loaded.
When an app launches, the sequence of events fired is:
- DOMContentLoaded
- activated (also known as mainwindowactivated)
- window.load
Windows 8 Language strings
DO THIS:
Set the default language as the fist in the list within Visual Studio:
right-click the project name, choose Properties.
REFERENCE:
Quickstart: Using string resources (Windows Store apps using JavaScript and HTML)
| Language Group | Language (Country) | Qualifier |
|---|
| Base
| English (US) | en-US |
| 4 Asian
| Chinese (Simplified) | zh-Hant |
| Chinese (Traditional) | zh-Hans or
zh-Hant-TW |
| Japanese (Japan) | jp-JP |
| Korean (Korea) | kr-KR |
| 6 European
| French (France) | fr-FR |
| German (Germany) | de-DE |
| Spanish (Spain) | es-ES |
| Italian (Italy) | it-IT |
| Portugese (Brasil) | pr-BR |
| Russian (Russia) | ru-RU |
Localizing a Windows app
DO THIS:
Within Visual Studio, right-click on the solution to Add New Folder strings.
Under strings Add a New Folder named "en-US" -- the default language for use by translators.
Add one folder for each language.
DO THIS:
Add > New Item... "Resources File (.resjson)"
WARNING:
The generated sample contents is wrong.
There should be a comma after all but the last item in the file.
DO THIS:
With the Release Preview, only major languages are supported beyond English:
4 Asian and 6 European.
Language codes are
BCP-47 language tags also used by XAML.
It is based on
IANA list of languages.
This is why Chinese language codes are not zh-CN or zh-TW.
Localization Mark-up
<button class="win-backbutton" data-win-res="{attributes: {'aria-label' : 'Back'}}" disabled type="button"></button>
to:
<button class="win-backbutton" data-win-res="{attributes: {'aria-label' : 'Back'}}" disabled type="button"></button>
But the sample uses this:
data-win-res="textContent: sample_hello">Hello World!</p>
data-win-res="textContent: sample_hello">Hello World!</p>
A resources.resjson file is within a folder for each language.
The file's extension refers to resources (res) in JavaScript object notation (json) format.
The file contains a single JavaScript object with a list of properties.
The name of each property is the name of a key that you can map to from a data-win-res attribute,
and the value of the property is the localized value.
The editor edits .resjson (JavaScript) resource files, which are equivalent to .resw for XAML.
How to manage language and region (Windows Store apps using JavaScript and HTML)
How to and
this note that unlike .NET desktop apps,
Culture in WinRT is not based on the CultureInfo object
Resource files must be named Resources.resw within
folder strings.
TOOL:
The .NET Resource File Generator (Resgen.exe) can also be used to decompile satellite assemblies into .resw files.
This is different than in .NET which has a base files for the neutral language (English) plus separate files for each language.
At compile time, the MakePRI utility combines all .resw files into a single package resource index (PRI) file
containing resources for all languages, cultures, and scale factors.
Remember this when reading run-time errors that refer to this file.
Visual Studio
resource editors
create and edit resources.
At run time, access to app resources are provided by the
Windows.ApplicationModel.Resources.ResourceLoader class
and types in the
Windows.ApplicationModel.Resources.Core namespace.
Translation
.xlf files are referenced by
Microsoft Translator to provide machine based translation from a cloud based service.
NLocalize.com
DO THIS:
Use the Multilingual App Toolkit to generate XLIFF files from .resjson files.
Create an XLIFF file for each language.
The Toolkit manages and synchronizes an app’s resources via .xlf files formatted in
XLIFF (XML Localisation Interchange File Format)
defined by industry group OASIS and well supported by some localization vendors and localization tools.
Locale Change
Rather than referring to settings of the user's local computer,
change (override) language locale with app code:
var ns = Windows.ApplicationModel.Resources.Core;
var rm = ns.ResourceManager;
var context = rm.current.defaultContext;
context.language = "fr";
Localization Testing
DO THIS:
If an app is localized, change the user's language
within Control Panel > Clock, Language, and Region > Language.
Testing is needed to check if an app has really avoided several common issues:
- Overflow of words (such as German) having more characters than English.
- Wrong number formats.
- etc.
Microsoft provides for this
Number Formatting
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Windows 8 Localization
