[Chandler-dev] Chandler I18n Status

[Brian Kirsch]

Hello,
Markku and I have had a very busy and productive two weeks in the 
Chandler I18n world.

I just wanted to send an update to list before I head off on vacation.

So what have we gotten done:

1. The Unit and Functional Tests now use non-ascii characters for all 
displayable and user level strings. This change illustrated that
     precautions were not being taken to correctly convert unicode to 
bytes when calling file system and logging API's. It also revealed
     a few string casts that were taking place in the Functional Test Suite.

2. The Chandler code base and tests now works with non-ascii file paths 
and non-ascii CHANDLERHOME paths on all three supported platforms Linux, 
OS X, and Windows XP.

3. Determined the best way to work with unicode and the Python file 
system API's on all three platforms. The rule of thumb is:

       If one is converting unicode to bytes and is going to pass those 
bytes to a Python file system API in the os package,
       the utf8 encoding should be used. For example:

            >>> u = u"/home/bkirsch/MyNonASCIIFilePath\u00FC"
            >>> os.mkdir(u.encode("utf8"))
 
       If one is converting bytes returned by a Python file system API 
in the os package to Python unicode
       the sys.getfilesystemencoding() character set should be used. For 
example,

           >>> path = os.getcwd()
           >>> unicodePath = unicode(path, sys.getfilesystemencoding())

4. Chandler now uses WxWidgets to determine the Locale the Operating 
System is running under. We used PyICU in the
    past but it did not always return accurate results.

5. The WxPython / WxWidgets localization files now get loaded when 
Chandler starts. Wx maintains its own localizations for
     things such as the Ok and Cancel button or the &File menu header. 
To see this in action start Chandler with the de (German locale).
   

     ./release/RunChandler -l de

     Go to the File menu and select Accounts. The Account preferences 
dialog will open and the Cancel button will be
     localized to the German work for Cancel "Abbruch" by Wx.

6. A new MessageFactory was added to the Chandler i18n package to access 
Wx localized strings from Chandler code:
    
        >>> from i18n import wxMessageFactory as w
        >>> #Assuming the current locale Chandler is running under is 
German (de)
       >>> print w("Cancel").encode("utf8")
         u'Abbruch'

   
7. The About dialog was moved from a static HTML file on disk to Python. 
Having a static file meant one would have to
    be created for each support Chandler locale as the verbiage required 
localization. Moving the About dialog text to Python code,
    the Chandler translation service can be leveraged and no static 
files are required.

8. Uncovered two new i18n related bugs:
         Bug:6017 
<http://bugzilla.osafoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6017> Setting 
wxLocale on Linux raises error even though Locale is valid.
         Bug:6021 
<http://bugzilla.osafoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6021> Repository 
fails to open when a non-ascii file path is used on Windows XP


9. Held meetings and discussions on the chandler-dev list about how best 
to load translations in to Chandler.
    Specifically, if the Repository was used for any type of 
localization then a second means would be
    need for those cases when the Repository has not been created yet 
but localized strings were required.
    This was less than ideal and was logged in bug 6007.

    The original intent was to use eggs to load localizations and bypass 
the Repository all together. However,
     the code needed to accomplish this task had not been written yet. 
Markku took it upon himself to
     write a proof of concept that has shown that *Yes* we can use eggs 
to ship and load gettext translation files
     and localized resources such as images an HTML files. Good work Markku!

     This proof of concept will be incorporated in to the Chandler i18n 
framework when I return from vacation.
      But we achieved our goal of keeping the Chandler 
Internationalization framework and the Repository independent.

10. Markku is currently working on a patch that will allow developers to 
create GUI layouts in  .xrc files  and still take
      advantage of the Chandler Translation Service. This patch involves 
work at the WxWidgets layer as well as some shell
      scripting. We currently use .xrc files for many of the dialogs in 
Chandler including the Account Preferences dialog.
      Developing with .xrc files is also very popular in the WxPython 
community and adding this support is a big win for
      our third party developer base. He will be checking in his work 
sometime next week.


Well that about sums it up!

See ya in two weeks,
Brian
     
 

    
    
  



-- 
Brian Kirsch -  Cosmo Developer / Chandler Internationalization Engineer
Open Source Applications Foundation
543 Howard St. 5th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
http://www.osafoundation.org

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