[OpenLayers-Dev] status of translation possibilities

[Tim Schaub]

I think we should organize thoughts with these use cases in mind. 
Please correct me as you see fit - but this is how I see things breaking 
down (descending order based on number of people in each group).

1) people who want a single language (theirs)
2) people who want dynamic translation

I almost put

0) people who don't know about language

since that is the case that OpenLayers currently considers - but I 
didn't want to make anybody angry.

Anyway, I'd like to see things done so we don't sacrifice efficiency for 
people who want a single file build that just includes their single 
language.  Having every element that contains a string registered as an 
event listener starts sounding a bit heavy for this case.

And, in terms of parsing strings for formatting, isn't it enough to 
break elements up based on the portions that can be translated:

<p>OpenLayers <span i18n="rocks">rocks</span></p>

?

This doesn't work for alert(str), but I happen to think we should purge 
alerts from the library.

Being contrary,
Tim

PS-  Also, I know the i18n attribute is too simple to deal with element 
attribute values that need translating themselves (<img src="..." 
alt="translate me">).  In that case, we need multiple attributes in the 
i18n namespace (something akin to 
http://wiki.zope.org/zope3/ZPTInternationalizationSupport).


Erik Uzureau wrote:
> On 10/18/07, Christopher Schmidt <crschmidt at metacarta.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Oct 18, 2007 at 03:46:21PM -0400, Paul Spencer wrote:
>>> On 18-Oct-07, at 2:31 PM, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
>>>
>>>> setLanguage, if we're going to provide a method for it, is going to
>>>> need
>>>> to be more complex than that. We'd have to loop through the controls,
>>>> and call redraw() on them, to update their text, and I'm not sure that
>>>> all controls would support a redraw correctly.
>>>>
>>> Could we use an event that is triggered and then controls that have
>>> strings can register (or be registered) for the language changing?
>>>
>>> OpenLayers.String.events.register('languagechange',
>>> OpenLayers.Function.bind(this, this.onLanguageChange));
>> I like this idea. I hadn't thought of it, and it makes sense.
> 
> yes, i like it to. the only thing i dont like about it is that it
> seems like it might sort of be a burden to control developers to have
> to deal with registering events.
> 
> to that end, we might consider such a thing as making the base
> OpenLayers.Control's constructor register the listener and call a stub
> function udpateLanguage() or something like that. In
> OpenLayers.Control, the stub function would do nothing. Then if
> controls _do_ wish to update on language changes, they need only
> implement the updateLanguage().
> 
> This might help in the case of a control that is subclassed from
> another control -- the updateLanguage() calls would be chained up,
> instead of having to register a separate listener for each class.
> 
> I dunno. This is just the first thing that comes to mind... that as a
> control developer it seems like kind of a PITA and or unnecessary
> overhead to be registering more listeners.
> 
> --E
> 
> 
>>> We will probably want a LanguageSwitcher control that sets the
>>> language and tracks the current language too, mostly for testing and
>>> development.
>> I'm not convinced that we need that, but if it gets built as part of
>> development, it would probably be useful.
>>
>>> We need a way of indicating what languages to support in any given
>>> application, and of enumerating the supported languages through the
>>> OpenLayers API.
>> for (var key in OpenLayers.Strings.languages) {
>>   alert(key);
>> }
>>
>>> We need a way to extend the base set of translations with other,
>>> application-specific translations.
>> OpenLayers.Strings.languages['eng']['My Application String!'] = 'My
>> application String!';
>>
>> OpenLayers.Strings.languages['spa']['My Application String!'] =
>> '¡String Applicacion de mio!';
>>
>> Regards,
>> --
>> Christopher Schmidt
>> MetaCarta
>>
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