[Chandler-dev] Branding (as in how to do it in code), i18n/l10n

[Brian Kirsch]

Hi Phillipe,
This was one track of the discussion we had yesterday during the eggs 
and localization meeting.

To sum up, if we use parcels / repository to register localizations then 
there will need to be an external set of localizations
that are just needed during Chandler Startup before a Repository is 
created.

This could be accomplished by using well known paths. For example, we 
define a translation domain for just Chandler startup and
point to a well known file system path where those translations reside 
i.e. $CHANDLERHOME/i18n/chandler-startup/fr.mo.

I need to put some more thought in to this. To me this solution is not 
ideal.

But again the main point is that if we use the Parcel framework to 
register translations then there will need to be an additional
step to localize strings are needed before the Repository is created.

--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



Philippe Bossut wrote:

> Hmm... That made me think: I'm currently reworking the Splash Screen 
> code to make it localizable (Bug 5618) but, if the translation service 
> is not available during start up (in particular, the repository is not 
> open yet when the splash screen displays) this could prove to be an 
> exercise in futility.
>
> It looks like the Splash Screen code should fetch its strings from a 
> "config" file, branding or not.
>
> Is that what you recommend Brian?
>
> Cheers,
> - Philippe
>
> Brian Kirsch wrote:
>
>>>> You should be able to use the
>>>> same brand in several different locales
>>>
>>
>> The i18n framework would not be the right place for branding strings. 
>> The locale model and gettext do not support the use case you are 
>> looking for.
>>
>> Off the top of my head I would recommend a config or startup file 
>> which contains the branding strings. Something like the equivilent of 
>> an Info.plist file on OS X.
>>
>>
>> A third party could then edit that file replacing the string value 
>> "Chandler" for example with "My Cool App" and replace the path to the 
>> splash screen image with a custom path etc.
>>
>>
>> --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
>>
>>
>>
>> Heikki Toivonen wrote:
>>
>>> Yesterday we discussed the ab ability to brand Chandler when I realized
>>> there is currently no easy way to do it.
>>>
>>> At a minimal level there should be a way to replace the vendor string,
>>> the application name string, application icons/images and welcome note
>>> text. If you wanted to get beyond that you would get into full
>>> skinnability etc. but I don't think this is initially required.
>>>
>>> I was hoping we could utilize the i18n support we've built in (as 
>>> far as
>>> I remember Mozilla does this for browser name etc.), but unfortunately
>>> these brand dependent strings are needed before we have opened the
>>> repository. We have this same problem in displaying error dialogs to
>>> users in case we have a problem opening the repository.
>>>
>>> So I was thinking that we need some i18n support during the bootstrap
>>> process.
>>>
>>> There is a wrinkle, though, and that is that a brand is not a locale,
>>> which is how translation normally happens. You should be able to use 
>>> the
>>> same brand in several different locales. Quick look at Python gettext
>>> did not seem to indicate anything that would be directly usable. Anyone
>>> know if it supports it or if there is something else we could use?
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>>>
>>>
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