Tamil Computing

D. M. Ahamed Kabeer Bhadhusha

Agenda
Android
What is android? What we should already know? What makes android so special?

Internationalization and Localization

Internationalization and Localization are subsets of Globalization Internationalization approach to globalization Localization Activities Internationalization and Localization Areas Internationalization and Localization Mobile Internationalization and Localization Android

Internationalization and Localization - Android

Application localization process Translating strings Localizing images Running and testing the localized application Localization checklist

What is Android?

An Includes It isopen not asource a device Java API Linux-based or product for developing operating applications system intended for mobile computing

What We Should Already Know?

So youre thinking: What makes Android so special?

Android is a free and open operating system from Google that runs on all kinds of devices from phones, to tablets and even televisions. Thats a ton of different devices you can target with just one platform. Google provides everything you need to get started building Android apps for free. And you can build your Android apps on either Mac, Windows, or Unix and publish your apps for next to nothing (and with no need for anyones approval).

Internationalization and Localization

Mobile applications market is rapidly growing across the globe. To reach the most users, application should handle text, audio files, numbers, currency, and graphics in ways appropriate to the locales where application will be used.
An increase in the number of users as more and more people will be able to use the application in their native languages, all this without having to create a single office in each of the regions supported.

More users = More sales = More profit

The benefits from sales almost always outweigh the costs. A lot of big companies in the US, Sun Microsystems included, obtain around half of their revenue from outside of the US.

Sales almost always outweigh the costs

By localizing a web application, the user level of comfort with the application increases.

Increases user level of comfort with the

Internationalization and Localization are subsets of Globalization

Taking a product and making it linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target locale (country/ region and language) where it will be used and sold

Process of generalizing a product so that it can handle multiple languages and cultural conventions without the need for re-design

Internationalization approach to globalization

Localization Activities

Internationalization and Localization Areas There are two main areas: the User interface and the back end logic (and possibly database encoding support). In this section we focus on the UI specific changes required to localize your web application. Here is a list of the commonly localized fields in a web Labels Messages Phone Currencies Numbers Times Dates Personal Sounds Colours Icons Graphics Addresses Page layouts numbers ontitles GUI components application:

Internationalization and Localization - Mobile

Localizing an application often involves translating the user-visible text of the application, but that is only part of the work that must be done. Other parts of your application must also be modified, including the following:

Internationalization and Localization - Android

1. Application Localization Process

Provide Android with the localized resource files. If the locale is en-US, Android will look for a value of R.string.title by searching the files in the following order: res/values-en-rUS/strings.xml res/values-en/strings.xml res/values/strings.xml When it manages to find the string in the resource file, it uses that value and stops searching.

Lets go over a sample application to better understand the localization process. This is a very simple single-language application which displays a countrys image and a text view according to the language set in the device. The structure of the project will be as shown in the figure 1.

2. Translating Strings The application requires four strings.xml files, one for each in English, Italian, French, and Russian. The procedure for creating strings.xml files is as follows: 1. Translate the strings.xml file to each language. 2. Create three new folders under res values-it, values-fr and valuesru 3. Place the translated strings.xml files in the respective folders. 3. Localizing Images Place background image that has to appear for a respective language in corresponding folders under the project workspace of the sample application as specified

4. Running and Testing the Localized Application Once the localized string and image resources are added to the project workspace, the application is ready for testing. To test it, we can set different locales via Home > Menu > Settings > Locale & text > Select locale.

5. Localization Checklist 1. Never hard-code strings or string constants; Instead use the R.string and strings.xml files. 2. Similarly, dont hard-code images or layouts; use R.drawable and R.layout 3. Translate the strings.xml files and localize your images. 4. Place your localized resources in the appropriate directories under res/. http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/localizati on.html

References
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/localization.html http://www.icanlocalize.com/site/tutorials/android-application-localization-tutorial http://wing-linux.sourceforge.net/guide/topics/resources/resources-i18n.html http://www.objectsource.com/j2eechapters/Ch19-I18N_and_L10N.htm

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPIntern Head First Android Development - Jonathan Simon