The BIG Localization Topic

I'd be willing to translate into german. Since I don't have programming skills, that's something I could contribute.

I could translate into italian.

People have translated some so far including me. Devs, check out http://www.mediabrowser.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1128&p=8466#p8466.

I'll translate into swedish again if needed, just pass the new strings and I'll get right on it.

I'll do swedish, no probs.

Hello,

I am not sure, if there is any progress in this area. As far as I can see, the localization topic is not assigned to anyone yet.

I would like to provide a localization mechanism which works for mcml as well as c# code. It is basically derived from my WPF experiences. I like it, because the overhead for localization is extremly low and it is based on Microsofts standard mechanisms regularly used .NET.

The follwoing screenshots show the attempt.

Large Image

Large Image

There were some difficulties I managed to circumvent. The first one was that there seems to be no access to static properties from mcml. The second was that one needs to register the resource dll with the gac, which I didn’t know.

The localization works straight forward: – Make the resource class available in mcml (2 code lines) – Replace the text to localize with a property accessor, like “[Res.ConfigPage_General]” – Add the english text to the Strings.resx – Add the localized text to the Strings..resx, e.g. Strings.de.resx for german.

I need some guidance (Sam?), if I shall continue with this.

Zowie,

We already have the architecture in place to enable localisation see: LocalizedStrings and LocalizedStringData, I usually shy away from resx based solutions as they are a big hassle for the actual consumers, instead we already have a designated folder where all string localizations live.

What needs to happen is a sweep through the code to hook up all the MCML stuff. Also theme builders need some sort of guidance.

If you want to help out please clone the MB repository from this page http://code.google.com/p/videobrowser/source/checkout and start having a play.

Hi Sam,

I see the localization xml-file and the two classes, but I did not got the idea how this could work together with mcml. There is “Kernel.StringData” (not used yet) and “Application.DescString” (only works in this special case). Do you have an idea how this should go forward? How is the “Kernel.StringData” accessed from mcml?

On the other side I continued to check, whether using resx-string-resources works as expected. – Support a third language: OK – Set language programatically through config instead of Windows Regional Settings: OK – Updated installer script to support language dlls: OK

I would really like to introduce resx in favour of the first localization attempt, if it is not really driven forward by anyone else. But I am completely new to the project and don’t know if this is ok for the core development team.

Im completely against regex cause it is not hackable, every time someone decides to update a localization a very particular file needs to be compiled using the vs sdk and then installed in the GAC, its trouble which is totally unmanageable.

Just edit french.xml is manageable.

If you want to access kernel from mcml you could hook off a helper on application which exposed it, its a trivial 3 line change, in Application.cs add

    public StringData LocalizedStrings
    {
       get { return Kernel.Instance.LocalizedString; }
    }

The Application object is available on all MCML pages.

I have looked at the existing code, but I still don't get the idea. Maybe I can help out translating to german, when the implementation of the localization package is finished.

If it is accessible, I could do French though I'm no programmer (or only web developer). Worst case, I could translate in a text file for someone who does know how to implement it.

Count me in for Portuguese translation if this gets implemented.

Hi,

will there be support for right-to-left language Like Hebrew?

Thanks

I've created a MB clone here : http://code.google.com/r/stephanevento-localization/source/list

I think at least 95% of the UI is now localized However I still have 2 small problems:

-Localization of “General”-“Actors” in the detailed Movie Page (ViewMovieMinimal.mcml) because it’s Choice class and I don’t know how to assign it with an Invoke action

-Localization of “General”-“Media options”… in the config page because they are defined at kernel loading. Thus I can’t call Kernel.StringData.

Hi,

I have good news about right to left! I have done two tests:

1) windows 7 – if you put Hebrew encoding in the mymovies.xml header the movie information will be shown correctly, Hebrew characters and aligned to the right.

2) Windows Vista – if you put Hebrew encoding in the mymovies.xml header the movie information will be show Hebrew characters but NOT aligned to the right. This can be solved by installing the Hebrew MUI pack for vista.

One more thing the MB configuration menu in Vista will be also aligned to the right which makes it a bit confusing to use, But at least you can still use it.

I think this solution can work for other RTL languages.

Can someone else check and report?

Will the themes that are out here be localisable too? Like to hear what the theme developers think about this…(i'm most interested to hear from Craigt and his Simplicity theme)

I can do Danish…!

Its in trunk now, we need a KB on how to localize MB!!!

From a tech stand point all that is required is localizing of the files in C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser\Localization

We also need to find a way of distributing this (perhaps from configurator)

We can also detect the current culture and download the associate xml file

I've created 2 placeholder topics in the Knowledgebase which I have left pending at the moment.

• General use: How does the localization support work?
• Development: How to create a localization file for Media Browser

Just a word of warning to theme devs out there. Not sure that anyone else was using the standard elements (like the index and sort menus) but the interfaces for those were changed which will cause any theme using them to crash (my personal theme had this problem).

Just a heads up that all themes should be tested against the current trunk…

Which languages are missing?

With regards to EBR’s comment above can I ask if we have any indication which themes might not work with Cronos yet and if not will it be included in the release notes of Cronos?

Sven, you should mark this as complete…

We need a local to post finish files for users to download…

I am currently working on the Swedish translation, it will be done by the beginning of next week.

Agree with Chuper, we need a post with all the translations available for download.

I just localized files to portuguese (strings-pt) but everytime I start MB it overwrites strings-pt file with english text (the name of file is still strings-pt but the text I translated before is overwritten by english text). Is this happenning with someone else? Am I doing something wrong?

My culture is Portuguese – Brazil and I setup parameter PreferredMetaDataLanguage to pt inside MediaBrowserXml.config file

After I check everything is ok I will upload portuguese – Brazilian files.

Thanks

Maybe you are saving into a different character-encoding scheme. This happened to me as well, when using the notepad.exe in windows.

I don’t know what character-encoding scheme it should be, but I'm using the E-text editor (Textmate on Mac) and that works fine.

Done with swedish translation, see this post

Hi,

Is there some repository with all translations ?

Point is to know wether some are already done (in my case, french) and if not achieve them.

Edit : I mean I'll do french if not already existing. :)

Hi,

Until something’s done for translation stuff, you can find french translation for MB Cronos, Vanilla 2.0, Maelstrom, etc…

Traduction française de MediaBrowser 2.2.4 Cronos

Note : there are a lot to modify and check as french language is quite longer than english is, to tell the same story. So I'll have a look at it deeper and update it this WE.

Now that I've done that, I just realized that it'd be even better to have some online board where we could update sentences by sentences for each language. This would help remaining up to date for each release and avoid looking for every fan file proposal.

Edit : 06/03/2010 Update of the translation correcting mistakes, shortening sentences… slight tests remaining to be done though