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Tricks and Tips for Adding Localization Features to Your Mobile Apps
- 3. WHY INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT TRICKS AND TIPS FOR ADDING LOCALIZATION FEATURES TO YOUR MOBILE APPS WHO IS THIS MAN? • Shawn Larson • Day Job – Nordstrom iOS Developer • Side Job - UW Extension Lecturer, Advisor Board • Shameless Plug – Author, iOS Internationalization: The Complete Guide • shawnlaAdev@gmail.com
- 4. For centuries, magicians have intuitively taken advantage of the inner workings of our brains Neil deGrasse Tyson • Inner workings of available classes • International magic because these classes take care of the formatting automatically WHERE’D THIS IDEA COME FROM? • Working on code • Code appending a dollar sign to JSON result: [NSString stringWithFormat:@”$ %@”, JSONResult.price]; • Has to be a smarter, automatic way to do this even if we only support one language, right?
- 5. GIST OF MY TALK • What makes it worth adding to the development schedule • General overview of localization vs. internationalization • What falls under the int’l umbrella – what to code for, what to test for • What we’re doing at Nordstrom WHAT WE’RE DOING AT NORDSTROM • Only support English • Numbering formatting • Currency format • Date formatting • Plurals • Single repository for text / copy
- 6. WHY SPEND THE TIME? • 60% of mobile users are non-English speaking • Does not add excessive amounts of time to the schedule • Good citizenship, good will, free publicity LOCALIZATION V. INTERNATIONALIZATION • Localization deals with strings, translations, graphics - things of the locale • Internationalization deals items specific to the region: • Dates, currency, time formats, measurements, text direction
- 7. LOCALIZED EXAMPLES WHAT DOES INTERNATIONALIZATION INCLUDE? • Date • Time Zone • Currency • Decimal Separator • Thousands / List Separator • Name Order – First, Last • Unicode Characters • Measurement Systems • Quotation Marks • Text direction • Right to Left (RTL) • Calendar Support • Sorting
- 9. GENERAL APPROACH FOR INT’L SUPPORT • Use a formatter object • Use a locale identifier WHY USE FORMATTER OBJECT? • Takes care of the formatting for you • Allows support for future language implementations • Only need to work with “basic data” – string, number • Don’t need to have the API response provide a specific, hard coded format: “$ 4,815.16”, that you’d have to parse through to potentially clean up. Same for dates
- 10. WHAT’S A LOCALE IDENTIFIER? • Combination of language setting and region • Generally two letter codes • Do not need to “match” – “fr_FR”, “en_US”, can be “different” - “fr_IL”, “de_US” NOW LET’S LOOK AT THESE IN DETAIL…
- 11. NUMBER FORMATTING • Thousands / List Separator • Decimal Separator • 4,815.16 4 815,16 CURRENCY • Symbol: $, €, ¥, ₤ • Currency Code: USD, EUR, JPY, GBP • Decimal Character: . , <space>
- 12. NUMBER FORMATTER OBJECT • Convert supplied string to an actual number object • Create a number formatter object • Specify the formatter style: • Decimal • Currency • Percent • Spelled Out • Finally, apply the number formatter to the number object INT’L SUPPORT DATE AND TIME • Separator – - (dash) / (slash) • Format – Month, Day, Year order • Short or Long – 9/22/04 or September 22, 2004 • 12 or 24 Hour clock • Displaying of AM / PM
- 13. DATE FORMATTER OBJECT • Convert supplied date string to an actual date object • Create a date formatter object • Specify the style to present the date with, Short, Long, Medium • Apply date formatter to the date object INT’L SUPPORT TIME ZONE • UTC - Coordinated Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time) • Consideration w/ appointment, meeting apps
- 14. TIME ZONE • Work with Time Zone object and Date Formatter object • Specify time zone abbreviation • CDT – “America/Chicago” • PDT – “America/Los_Angeles” • Apply the time zone object to the date formatter with locale identifier • Results will be in UTC time INT’L SUPPORT NAMES • First name first? • Last name First? • With Japanese settings, it is last name listed first
- 15. NAMES • NSPersonNameComponents (iOS 9) • givenName, middleName, familyName properties • Try to avoid parsing at all cost INT’L SUPPORT UNICODE CHARACTERS • Ever heard of emoji’s? • Support for high value characters, generally Japanese and Chinese characters
- 16. UNICODE CHARACTERS • Font support • Depend on system provided fonts as much as possible • Be aware of character substitution – Yen for a backslash • Be cognizant of clipping diacritical marks with line height: • Acute ‘ and grave ` accent characters • Cedillas – hooks and tails: ç ć • When working with labels, don’t set the width – allow it to be dynamic. Don’t set its content width INT’L SUPPORT MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS • Be aware if the region use Metric System or Imperial Units • Will you be displaying measurements, such as a Ruler, Shape dimensions, Page sizes • Sizes of products - shoes
- 17. MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS • Query the Locale or System object • Do not create a table, associating measurement system with current region INT’L SUPPORT CALENDAR SUPPORT • Gregorian • Buddhist • Japanese • Calculation and display of years • General display of dates
- 18. CALENDAR • Calculating dates, like 7 days from now – will the result land in the next month? Are you displaying the appropriate month for the system calendar? • Relative date calculations • Work with Date Objects and Component objects to do calculations INT’L SUPPORT QUOTATION MARKS • Inverted Commas • German: „ “ • Sie liest Thomas Manns Novelle „Der Tod in Venedig“. • French: «» • Jean a dit : « Je veux le faire. »
- 19. QUOTATION MARKS • Query the Locale object • Can work with concatenating retrieved characters • More than likely this will be handled bay localizers / translators INT’L SUPPORT TEXT DIRECTION • Left to Right languages • Affects Layout • Right to Left languages (Hebrew, Arabic)
- 20. TEXT DIRECTION • Depend on relative layout • On iOS / Mac OS – Auto Layout & Constraints • Avoid hard coded position values and absolute positioning • Big assist for device rotation and orientation – Landscape / Portrait • Positioning and resizing of controls INT’L SUPPORT SORTING • Languages have different rules • Swedish v. Other Languages: • ä sorted after z; German sorts following the letter a • Å, A, and B sorted as A, B, and Å. English sorts as A, Å, and B • Makes you look smart with a section index
- 21. SORTING • No general rule • No sorting “object” available • Sorting mechanism to support locale. iOS has localizedCaseInsensitiveCompare method • General, you’re sorting based on Unicode value of character. Localization option adds another component to respect those settings • No singular win for the 1 language app but limited implementation cost for multilanguage support benefit INT’L SUPPORT CLDR • Unicode Common Locale Data Repository • http://unicode.org - http://cldr.unicode.org • Locale-specific patterns for formatting and parsing • Dates, times, time zones • How to represent numbers and currency values • Grammar rules / pluralization INT’L SUPPORT
- 22. CLDR, continued • Language & script information • Plural cases • Gender of lists (pronouns) • Rules for sorting & searching • Writing direction • Rules for segmenting text into graphemes, words, and sentences • Country information • Calendar preference and week conventions • Telephone codes INT’L SUPPORT WHY SUPPORT PLURALS? • Respect locale’s grammar rules • Display text based on a value – Zero, One, Other • Eliminates hard coded strings in code with IF statements • Central place for strings and easier to modify and maintain.
- 23. CONFIGURING FOR PLURALS SUPPORT • There are a number of hoops to jump through • Much like localization support - .strings file with Keys and Values • Also includes a Strings Dictionary file - .stringsdict • .stringsdict holds entries Zero, One, Other and their results: Items, 1 item, %lu items PLURALS DISPLAY • Custom entry for a value of Zero • Custom entry for a value of One • Any other value falls into the Other category. Displays the entered value