[OpenLayers-Dev] OpenLayers Internationalization

[Christopher Schmidt]

Couple questions for internationalization:

Current strings included in the OpenLayers Library which are likely
candidates for i18n (incomplete):

Ajax.js:37:    alert("Unhandled request return " + request.statusText);
Control/OverviewMap.js:537:                alert('The overview map only
works when it is in the same projection as the main map');
Format/GeoRSS.js:124:          alert("Couldn't parse " +
geometry.CLASS_NAME);
Format/WFS.js:126:        if (!feature.fid) { alert("Can't update a
feature for which there is no FID."); }
Format/WFS.js:161:            alert("Can't update a feature for which
there is no FID."); 
Format.js:42:        alert("Read not implemented.");
Format.js:56:        alert("Write not implemented.");
Layer/GML.js:129:        alert("Error in loading GML file "+this.url);
Layer/Vector.js:172:            alert(message);
     var message = "Your browser does not support vector rendering. " +
                   "Currently supported renderers are:\n";
     message += this.renderers.join("\n");


Layer/WFS.js:376:  
            this.commitReport('WFS Transaction: SUCCESS', response);
            this.commitReport('WFS Transaction: FAILED', response);
                        

 * How much support do we need for interpolation in text? I think that
   the answer for this at the moment is "none" -- that is, all
   translated text will be literal, exact matches for the time being,
   with no interpolation of variables into the middle of strings. This
   may change in the future. Depending on how it changes, more complex
   support for pluralization may also be needed. For the time being, I'd
   like to ignore all of this and just pretend that we want simple
   string translations unless someone tells me otherwise.
 * In general, translation libraries use a short function name to
   indicate "translate this string." (I think a common use in C is the
   "_" function, via the gettext library or what have you.) In
   OpenLayers, we try not to squash other people's namespaces. I'd like
   to use OpenLayers._ for translation, as opposed to
   OpenLayers.Strings._ or something similar.
 * I think the simplest thing to do is to have a single Javascript file
   with the Strings in it (lib/OpenLayers/Strings.js), and a default
   language. Then, to change the language, all you need to do is
   something like:

     OpenLayers.Strings.language = "fr";

   before you start working with the UI. Does this seem sane? the 
   file might look something like this:

   OpenLayers.Strings = {
     'en': {
       // Message reported via alert when WFS transaction succeeds
       'olLayerWFSSuccessMessage': 'WFS Transaction: SUCCESS'
     },
     'es': {
       'olLayerWFSSuccessMessage': 'WFS Transaction: e`xito!'
     },
     '1337': {
       'olLayerWFSSuccessMessage': '5|_|CC35'
     
     
   }  
   OpenLayers.Strings.language = 'en';
  
   Is there anything that anyone can think of that would make this
   totally infeasible?

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta