[jboss-dev] jboss i18n and localization (l10n)

[Jens Petersen]

Hi,

I would like to ask about and start some discussion about localization 
(translation) of JBoss projects.

I think there is going to be an increasing need for localization of 
JBoss projects, so probably it is a good time to start thinking about 
how to do internationalization of projects in a way that is optimal for 
developers, translators and users.  I think there are two sides to this: 
(1) the process of getting translations done and integrated into svn and 
releases and (2) the java library used to substitute the translations at 
runtime.

For (1), the translation process, in the Open Source world a lot of 
translation is done using .po files.  First the strings that need to be 
translated are extracted from the source using xgettext to generate a 
so-called POT file, which is the skeleton used to generate the .po files 
for each language that is to be translated.  Finally the translated .po 
files are committed in the version control system along with the 
ResourceBundles generated from them.

(2) would then require using Gettext in the Java modules that require 
translations and marking the strings to be translated appropriately so 
that they can be extracted automatically for translation.

That is a brief sketch of how would could use Gettext to handle the 
translations.  It might also be possible to use XLiff later to generate 
the ResourceBundles for translations directly.

How does that idea sound?
Ideas, comments, other suggestions and feedback are most welcome.

Jens Petersen
Internationalization Team
Red Hat