Continuing
with our tips on the types of website programming and
the ways to deal with these types for later localization,
we will examine in this edition what can be done and
how to do it.
There
is not any tool that "understands" all the existing
programming codes for client or server and makes available
to translators only what really needs to be translated.
Some
programs try to facilitate such task by highlighting what
needs to be translated by following some of the patterns of
each programming language. However, each programmer can use
a great variety of techniques and programming methods, which
allows for these tools to include programming codes into the
translatable texts. During translation, the removal or addition
of quotation marks, full stop, semi-colons or any other character
used by the programming language may prevent the code from
functioning.
To
avoid accidents in the programming codes, files are usually
pre-prepared for translation. Later on, the localization engineer
(who must be acutely aware of the programming languages and
the translation processes) reviews the pre-prepared files
and makes the necessary adjustments to assure that only what
needs to be translated is available.
This
saves time and prevents problems related to code debugging.
Hence, it will be easier to detect the problem and find a
solution for it.
TIPS:
However,
to avoid additional steps in the translation process the best
choice is to have the developers change some (bad) habits
that are commonplace in the creation of programming codes.
The
following two examples demonstrate how the process is usually
carried out and how it could be improved:
1.
Never separate the parts of a text that will make a sentence
when the code runs
For certain languages, the word order may have to be altered
during the translation process. If the texts are separated,
the correct translation of the sentence can become difficult.
In the following example, the quotes are considered text qualifiers,
which would break a sentence into two. The best method for
this case then would be placeholder replacement.
What follows is a JavaScript example that will show the sentence
“You are on page 3 of the open document.” in an
alert box:
| BAD |
pag_num
= 3;
alert (“You are on page ” + pag_num +
“ of the open document.”);
|
| |
|
| IDEAL |
myString
= new String(“You are on page %n of the open
document.”);
rExp = /%n/gi;
pag_num = 3;
results = myString.replace(rExp, pag_num);
alert (results);
|
2. Do not leave the translatable texts together with
the code
Instead of making all texts hardcoded, it is preferable to
declare constants in a file that is detached from the programming
code. Therefore, the texts of this programming code can be
translated in a separate file. This allows for the website
logics (code) to not be necessarily edited, as the following
example in JavaScript using the same sentence above:
| BAD |
pag_num
= 3;
alert (“You are on page ” + pag_num +
“ of the open document.”);
|
| |
|
| IDEAL |
text.js
myString = new String("You are on page %n of
the open document.");
code.html
<SCRIPT SRC="text.js"></SCRIPT>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
rExp = /%n/gi;
pag_num = 3;
results = myString.replace(rExp, pag_num);
alert (results);
</SCRIPT>
|
In
our next edition, we will examine more tips on website programming
to facilitate the localization process. We will also discuss
the fourth type of programming mentioned in the first tip
of this series: sites built on databases.
See
you then!
