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Translations

If someone wants to contribute a new translation to Digital, the problem is not only to create the new translation. There must be a way of maintaining the translation as the program evolves.

There are three situation which can occur if the program evolves after the new translation is completed:

  1. There are language keys which are no longer needed. This is the simplest situation: I can remove the keys from all language files by myself.
  2. A new language key is added. In this case I can add the translation for English and German. In all other language files the keys are missing and are replaced by the English version at runtime. But it is easy to find such keys: Simply look for keys which are available is English and are missing in other language files.
  3. The most complex case occurs when a key remains unchanged but the corresponding text changes. It is difficult to see which keys had to be revised in other languages. To keep track of such keys the reference file comes into play.

If a new translation is added not only the translated language file is added (e.g. lang_pt.xml) but also a file (lang_pt_ref.xml). The latter one is the reference file and is a copy of the original English translation (lang_en.xml). When it is necessary to change a language text, it is possible to detect that afterwards: It is possible to compare the strings in the english translation with the content of the reference file which is also English. If the strings are not identical, the translation needs to be revised. To do so, one has to update the translation and the English text in the reference file.

How to add a new Language

Add the new language to the file "Digital/src/main/resources/lang/lang.xml" Then start the language test by running

mvn -Dtest=TestLang test

Now all necessary files are created. In the target folder you can find a diff file that contains all missing keys. Now you can start adding your translation. Copy this file to another location! The file will be overwritten every time Digital is built! Use the Language Importer "Digital/src/test/java/de/neemann/digital/lang/LanguageUpdater.java" to import your work. It is possible to import only partially translated files. This helps you to test your translation step by step.

How to find keys that need to be revised later on

Digital contains some test cases that check the consistency of the translations. The test class "TestLang" checks the consistency of the language files.

The easiest way to run the test case is to install maven. Then you can start the test case by typing:

mvn -Dtest=TestLang test

This gives you a diff file for each language. This file contains all keys that have been added or modified. You can now add or update the language fragments contained in this file. After that start the class "Digital/src/test/java/de/neemann/digital/lang/LanguageUpdater.java". This allows you to select the reworked diff file and import it.