[jbosstools-dev] The new "i18n" directory in jbosstools

Hi, You might have noticed the new "i18n" directory. This contains the beginnings of a new, optional, build step to generate language packs for JBoss Tools. This is very much unfinished work, and quite a lot will change, but I thought I should tell you what it is. For now, it's safe to ignore the i18n directory, and this email, but if you're interested, "ant all" in the i18n directory can: 1. Extract the English text from all the .properties files contained in JBT's plugins, converting them to POT files. (These will be passed to the Red Hat Localisation team for translation.) 2. Generate some English-based "translations" (en, qps, en_AA) for use in testing. "en" is just the original English, which may or may not be useful. The other two are identical pseudo-translations of the original English. qps is a standards-compliant name for an artificial locale, whereas en_AA fits in with the Babel project's pseudo-translation for the Eclipse SDK. 3. Convert translated PO files (like the above-generated ones, or real translations once they are checked in to i18n/po/${locale} into standard Java .properties files under i18n/target/prop/${locale}. These prop files are then packaged in language packs as plugin fragments and features, along with an update-site site.xml. And for good measure, the langpacks are packaged into monolithic zips too, one per locale. If you point Eclipse's update manager at file://${jbosstools-src}/i18n/target/jars/site.xml it's possible to install some of the langpacks, eg org.hibernate.eclipse.feature. Others fail with a dependency problem I haven't resolved yet. (Debugging hints welcome!) And you will probably want to *disable all other update sites*, because Eclipse takes forever to check dependencies otherwise... (Again, any help welcomed!) Note: to test Eclipse/JBDS with the en_AA locale, you can run the eclipse executable with the option "-nl en_AA". Otherwise you won't see the translated strings. Warning: the i18n build file is extremely hideous, partly because it overuses ant-contrib's features, but I'm working on that. Sean. -- Sean Flanigan Senior Software Engineer Engineering - Internationalisation Red Hat