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

[Sean Flanigan]

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

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