[LON-CAPA-dev] Internationalization

[Minoru Akiyama]

Hi, Gerd,

Sample file is not  encoded in UTF-8.
I'd like to develop Japanese lexicon, but I'm afraid it won't
work in the case of Japanese(double byte code).

i-Learning / EMIT Japan
Minoru Akiyama

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gerd Kortemeyer" <korte@lite.msu.edu>
To: <lon-capa-dev@mail.lon-capa.org>; "Leonardo Mendes"
<lmendes@decom.fee.unicamp.br>; "Ricardo Luis Kulzer"
<ricardol@decom.fee.unicamp.br>; "Horst Bögel"
<boegel@chemie.uni-halle.de>; "Shoji Kajita"
<kajita@itc.nagoya-u.ac.jp>; "Timothy Takemoto"
<tim@yamaguchi-u.ac.jp>; "Michael Thoennessen"
<thoennessen@nscl.msu.edu>
Cc: "Gerd Kortemeyer" <korte@lite.msu.edu>; "Ed Kashy"
<kashy@nscl.msu.edu>; <cspeier@msu.edu>; "Deborah Kashy"
<kashyd@pilot.msu.edu>; "Wolfgang Bauer" <bauer@pa.msu.edu>;
"Helen Keefe" <helen@lon-capa.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 9:28 PM
Subject: [LON-CAPA-dev] Internationalization


> Hi,
>
> As you might have seen from a number of CVS commits in the last
two
> days, we have started to internationalize LON-CAPA, so that it
can run
> in different languages. We have also started localizing for
German and
> Portuguese. Internalizing is the bulk of the work right now,
localizing
> can be done anytime, and involves no programming.
>
> The internationalization process involves putting a wrapper
around
> on-screen user messages and menus and turning them into keys,
which the
> Maketext library translates into the desired language output
using a
> look-up table ("lexicon").
>
> As keys we are currently using the plain English messages, and
Maketext
> is configured to replace the message by its own key if no
translation
> is found. This makes it easy to phase in the
internationalization
> without disturbing the screen output.
>
> Internationalization is tedious, and the more we can distribute
the
> work, the better.
>
> *** New software should be written in internationalized format
from now
> on.
>
> *** If you feel like doing something brainless but productive,
grab a
> module and internationalize it.
>
> *** As you come across some code during normal programming,
just insert
> the wrappers.
>
> *** HERE'S WHAT TO DO:
>
> Into the "use" section of a module, we need to insert
>
>   use Apache::lonlocal;
>
> - note that there are NO BRACKETS, we *want* to pollute our
namespace.
>
> Inside might be something like this
>
> sub message {
>     my $status=shift;
>     my $message='Status unknown';
>     if ($status eq 'WON') {
>        $message='You have won.';
>     } elsif ($status eq 'LOST') {
>        $message='You are a total looser.';
>     }
>     return $message;
> }
> ...
> $r->print('<h3>Gamble your Homework Points</h3>');
> ...
> $r->print(<<ENDMSG);
> <font size="1">Rules:</font>
> <font size="0">No purchase necessary. Illegal where not
allowed.</font>
> ENDMSG
>
> We have to now wrap the subroutine &mt() ("maketext") around
our
> messages, but not around markup, etc. We also want minimal
disturbance.
> The first two examples are easy:
>
> sub message {
>     my $status=shift;
>     my $message='Status unknown';
>     if ($status eq 'WON') {
>        $message='You have won.';
>     } elsif ($status eq 'LOST') {
>        $message='You are a total looser.';
>     }
>     return &mt($message);
> }
> ...
> $r->print('<h3>'.&mt('Gamble your Homework Points').'</h3>');
>
> The last one is a bummer, since you cannot call subroutines
inside of
> (<<MARKER). I have written a little subroutine to generate a
translated
> hash for that purpose:
>
> my %lt=&Apache::lonlocal::texthash('header' => 'Rules',
'disclaimer' =>
> 'No purchase necessary. Illegal where not allowed.');
> $r->print(<<ENDMSG);
> <font size="1">$lt{'header'}:</font>
> <font size="0">$lt{'disclaimer'}</font>
> ENDMSG
>
> As a programmer, your job is done here. If everything worked,
you
> should see no changes on the screen.
>
> As a translator, you need to provide the lexicon for the keys,
which in
> this case is the plain text message. The lexicons sit in
> loncom/localize/localize, with the language code as filename,
for
> example de.pm for the German translation. The file then simply
looks
> like this:
>
>     'You have won.'
> => 'Sie haben gewonnen.',
>
>     'You are a total looser.'
> => 'Sie sind der totale Verlierer.',
>
>     'Rules'
> => 'Regeln',
>
>     'No purchase necessary. Illegal where not allowed.'
> => 'Es ist erlaubt, einfach zu verlieren, und das ist Ihre
Schuld.'
>
> The German translation lexicon is in pretty okay shape, but not
> complete yet. Portuguese currently only covers the login
screen.
> Russian is purely experimental. Looks like UTF-8 is the way to
encode
> this, at least for latin/greek-based languages, but we still
have to
> learn a lot.
>
> This is a relatively easy programming task, and any help is
appreciated.
>
> Maketext can do a whole lot more, see
>
>
http://search.cpan.org/dist/Locale-Maketext/lib/Locale/Maketext.pod
>
> but for most purposes, we do not have to mess with that.
>
> - Gerd.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-dev mailing list
> LON-CAPA-dev@mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-dev
>