Difference between revisions of "Projects:Go Bible/UI Translation"

Revision as of 14:53, 31 January 2012

Translating the Go Bible User Interface

Most User Interface (UI) items for Go Bible can be localized by replacing the default English text using the various UI properties.

This should normally be done within the collections text file – not by directly editing the internal ui.properties file.

UI properties

Here is a flat list of the available UI properties (for release 2.4.x) and their default values:

UI-Goto: Go to
UI-Cancel: Cancel
UI-Preferences: Preferences
UI-History: History
UI-OK: OK
UI-Search: Search
UI-Search-Results: Search Results
UI-Add-Bookmark: Add Bookmark
UI-Bookmarks: Bookmarks
UI-Exit: Exit
UI-Send: Send
UI-Send-SMS: Send SMS
UI-Send-MMS: Send MMS
UI-About: About
UI-Loading: Loading
UI-Save: Save
UI-Font-Size: Font size
UI-Small: Small
UI-Medium: Medium
UI-Large: Large
UI-Font-Style: Font style
UI-Plain: Plain
UI-Bold: Bold
UI-Full-Screen: Full screen
UI-On: On
UI-Off: Off
UI-Theme: Theme
UI-Themes: Themes
UI-Theme-Paper: Paper
UI-Theme-Computer: Computer
UI-Theme-Floral: Floral
UI-Theme-Natural: Natural
UI-Theme-Blue: Blue
UI-Theme-Sunshine: Sunshine
UI-Change: Change
UI-Select: Select
UI-Reverse-Colours: Reverse Colours
UI-Reverse-Characters: Reverse Characters
UI-Book: Book
UI-Books: Books
UI-All: All
UI-New-Testament: New Testament
UI-Old-Testament: Old Testament
UI-Gospels: Gospels
UI-Pauls-Letters: Paul's Letters
UI-Other-Letters: Other Letters
UI-Books-Of-Moses: Books of Moses
UI-Historical: Historical
UI-Poetic: Poetic
UI-Major-Prophets: Major Prophets
UI-Minor-Prophets: Minor Prophets
UI-Chapter: Chapter
UI-Search-Text: Search Text
UI-From-Book: From Book
UI-To-Book: To Book
UI-Stop: Stop
UI-Searching: Searching
UI-Found: Found
UI-Please-Wait: Please wait
UI-Results: Results
UI-View: View
UI-Delete-Bookmark: Delete Bookmark
UI-Delete-Bookmark-Alert: Delete the selected bookmark?
UI-Delete: Delete
UI-Send-Verses: Send Verses
UI-Back: Back
UI-To: to
UI-Select-Verses-To-Send: Select verses to send
UI-Error: Error
UI-Message-Too-Large-To-Be-Sent: Message too large to be sent
UI-Verse-Does-Not-Exist: Verse does not exist
UI-Phone-Number: Phone Number
UI-Of: of

Other numeral systems

A new UI property called UI-Digits facilitates using a different numeral system for chapter and verse numbers. The method is to specify a ten character string corresponding to the digits 0 through 9. Examples are given in the Projects:Go Bible/SymScroll SymScroll page.

Unused UI properties

For various reasons, some of the original UI properties are not used in the latest software release. These are listed below:

UI-OK: OK
UI-Send-MMS: Send MMS
UI-Book: Book
UI-Chapter: Chapter
UI-From-Book: From Book
UI-To-Book: To Book

Translators should still translate these properties, in case:

• the removed feature is fixed and brought back into use again
• the UI translation is used to localize an earlier build

Notes:

1. UI-Send-MMS is currently out of use because the Send MMS feature never worked.
2. UI-Book and UI-Chapter were left overs from very early code.
3. UI-Chapter is in the SymScroll branch Go To form for touch-screen phones.
4. UI-From-Book and UI-To-Book were left over from an earlier method of specifying the Search scope. These are re-used in the SymScroll branch.

New UI properties

The SymScroll branch of Go Bible requires several new UI properties, which are not listed here in this current page.

Phone menu items

Some menu items displayed by Go Bible are not part of the Go Bible UI per se. These are the words Edit, More, OK & Select, which are (in most cases) part of the phone menu. Such items appear when Go Bible accesses an existing MIDP phone feature, or simply borrows the UI string from it. These items usually change when the phone language is changed, e.g. to French, for which these four items become Modifier, Autres, OK^[1], Selection.

1. ↑ OK is common to most languages, so it doesn't often change.

The Go Bible tagline

Jolon Faichney hard-coded the original tagline, "For the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ and for the furtherance of His kingdom."

No doubt he had sound reasons for this, that made good sense when he first began the project in 2003. Whilst we recognize why this might present a problem for some people groups, it is not yet something we have moved to the translatable UI.

Localization

For localization, the developer should translate the strings after the colon for each UI-property. Do not alter the identifying names of any UI-property.

The order of these UI-properties does not matter, so it's quite acceptable to use a sorted copy.

The UI translation should be Unicode text encoded as UTF-8 (without BOM). Use a suitable text editor.

To use a UI translation with Go Bible Creator, simply include these lines within your collections text file.

Context

From the flat list of the UI properties, it may not be apparent to a translator what is the context for each item.

Go Bible Menu – links to the interactive Flash object for the UI mind map

To assist understanding, here is a contextualised interactive picture of the Go Bible Menu / UI.

Notes:

1. The external link requires Adobe Flash™.
2. It was exported from a mind map that I made using FreeMind.
3. There are Flash controls in light grey at the top left and top centre of the page.
4. One of these controls will FIT the (expanded) object to the display area.
5. One of the controls on the top left is a search box.
6. Each node represents a Go Bible UI property. The node names are the UI default English text.
7. Each node can be expanded/collapsed at the click of the mouse.
8. The image on the right is of the collapsed view. Collapsed nodes are indicated by a small circle.
9. Node names in grey italics are no longer used.
10. Node names in green are borrowed from the phone menu.

Further notes (UI properties):

1. UI-Loading – is displayed temporarily when the Go Bible is loading data into memory
2. UI-Of – is part of the Go Bible display top line (just before the total number of verses in the current chapter).
3. UI-Of – for languages in which such constructions as 13 of 29 don't apply, a simple workaround is to use the solidus " / " instead of " of ", e.g. 13 / 29 .

Remark lines

Remark lines are permitted within ui.properties. These must start with the hash # character. Such a commented file is useful to clarify the context for each item.

Notes:

1. These remark lines are ignored by the Go Bible software.
2. An example is provided in the SymScroll page.
3. The Unicode text editor Notepad++ displays properties file remark lines in a different colour.

Submitting a UI translation

The simplest method is to just paste the Unicode text for the UI translation into a new topic in the Go Bible Forum.

Notes:

1. You must be signed in first!
2. There is a topic category for User interface translations.
3. Make sure you don't forget to clearly identify the language.
4. We already have UI translations for many languages, so please submit new ones only for languages we don't already have.
5. Corrections to existing UI translations are also welcomed.

See also

• How to change the User Interface (UI) for an existing Go Bible application.