2012-04-18

iOS translations

I'm currently playing around with iOS software development.
Having done Java half of my life and Android for the last 2+ years it sounded like a sensible thing to look at...
The thing I'm currently looking at is localisation.
I'm quite underwelmed.

It really looks like the current way to design UIs are storyboard files.
They are a newly introduced mechanism. So I can expect Apple to have learned from any past mistakes.
They are graphically edited XML files that contain the UI elements, their connection to the Code and all strings.
...They don't support any localisation.
From what I figured out the way to translate them it so basically let XCode (the IDE) create a full copy of that file and you replace all texts in there.
This means that any added, moved or otherwise modified UI-element needs to be done again and again for every language your project features.
Dumb!
Just plain dumb!
No one but an american could have come up with such nonsense in localisation.

1 Kommentar:

Anonym hat gesagt…

I fully agree with you. That's the way it's obviously done.

I am working on a commercial project that needs translation now.
So my solution is to use only placeholders and outlets. Later I assign the outlets translated strings.