Development/Tutorials/Localization/i18n (fr)
Development/Tutorials/Localization/i18n
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| Série de tutoriels | Localization |
| Prérequis | Lire l'introduction à l'Unicode est recommandé, mais ce n'est pas obligatoire |
| Suite | Éviter les pièges de traduction les plus courants |
| Aller plus loin | n/a |
Théorie
Avoir un grand nombre d'utilisateur et de développeurs requiert que votre logiciel puisse être traduit, ou tout au moins qu'il soit linguistiquement et culturellement (formats d'écriture (date, heure, ...), alphabets, sens d'écriture, ...) adapté à l'utilisateur de votre application. C'est le travail de la traduction (ou localisation) et ce tutoriel vous guidera sur les voies de la création d'applications facilement traduisibles.
Que sont l'internationalisation et la traduction ?
L'internationalisation, ou i18n ('i', suivit de 18 lettres, puis d'un 'n'), est le processus d'écriture d'applications qui peuvent être facilement localisables. Cela signifie prendre en compte des choses telles que :
- les messages textuels qui sont affichés à l'utilisateur
- les données envoyées ou écrites par l'utilisateur ; les fichiers par exemple
- les formats de dates, nombres, monnaie, etc.
La localisation, ou l10n ('l', suivit de 10 lettres, puis d'un 'n'), est le fait de "prendre" une application internationalisée et l'adapter à un pays ou à une langue.
D'une façon générale, les programmeurs internationalisent leurs applications, et les équipes de traduction les localisent.
Pourquoi est-ce si important ?
Le développement de KDE se fait principalement en Anglais, ce qui permet d'avoir de plus grandes communautés de développement et de traduction. Cependant, l'Anglais n'est pas le langage majoritaire dans le monde. En réalité, moins de 8% de l'Humanité par Anglais, et cette langue n'est la langue maternelle que de 5% des personnes. Mais, si actuellement 35% des personnes allant sur Internet parlent cette langue, ce chiffre diminue. De plus, un grand nombre de langues (9 par mis les 10 majoritaires) utilisent des caractères non-ASCII. Il est donc facile de comprendre le besoin de fournir un logiciel localisé.
En tant que projet international, une telle localisation est une des valeurs fondamentales de KDE. En fait, pendant que de nombreux développeurs de KDE écrivent leurs logiciels e Anglais, ils utilisent sur leur ordinateur leur langue native (qui n'est pas forcément l'Anglais).
Translatable Code Using i18n()
To ensure your application is ready to be localized you have to follow a few simple rules. All user-visible strings in your application should be translated before they are displayed on the user's screen, exceptions to this being debugging messages, configuration keys and similar types of text data.
KDE provides the KLocale class as part of libkdecore to facilitate the technical details of localization. KLocale makes it as easy as possible for developers to make their code i18n aware, but there are some things you need to be aware of so that applications are usable in other languages and countries.
Access to a global KLocale object is provided via KGlobal::locale(). This KLocale object is created automatically by KInstance and takes care of all user i18n related settings. It is deleted automatically on application exit.
Translations are made possible by the QString i18n(const char*) method, defined in klocalizedstring.h, which you must wrap all strings that should be displayed in. The QString returned by i18n() is the translated (if necessary) string. This makes creating translatable widgets as simple as in this example:
- include <klocalizedstring.h>
[...]
QPushButton* myButton = new QPushButton(i18n("Translate this!"));
QString's native Unicode support ensures that all translations are represented correctly. All string handling done by your application should therefore use QString.
ki18n
The i18n() method requires that a KInstance (e.g. KApplication) has been created. For any strings that are created prior to this there is another method provided: ki18n(). This allows one to mark strings that should be translated later as such. The ki18n() will return a KLocalizedString, which can be finalized into a QString (i.e. translated for real) after the KInstance has been created, using its toString() method.
ki18n() is typically used for strings given to KAboutData, because it is constructed before the KApplication and you can use i18n() only after the construction of the KApplication. Other than these special cases, it is always safe to use i18n() if you are sure that the code will be executed after construction of KApplication or some other KInstance.
Adding Context with i18nc()
There is an extended method, i18nc() which takes two const char* arguments. The first argument is an additional contextual description of the second string which will be translated. The first string is used to find the proper corresponding translation at run-time and is shown to translators to help them understand the meaning of the string.
Use i18nc() whenever the purpose of the text might be ambiguous without further context. For example, consider a context menu in a file manager with an entry called "View" which opens a viewer for the currently selected file. In this context "View" is a verb. However, the same application also may have a menu called "View" in the menubar. In that context "View" is a noun. In the English version of the application everything looks fine, but in most other languages one of the two "View" strings will be incorrect.
Additionally, translators sometimes need extra help in understanding what the text is actually referring to during the translation process.
In the file manager example above, one might therefore write:
contextMenu->addAction(i18nc("verb, to view something", "View"));
viewMenu->addAction(i18nc("noun, the view", "View"));
Now the two strings will be properly translatable, both by the human translators and at runtime by KLocale.
Use this form of i18n whenever the string to translate is short or the meaning is hard to discern when the context is not exactly known. For example:
QString up = i18nc("Go one directory up in the hierarchy", "Up");
QString relation = i18nc("A person's name and their familial relationship to you.", "%1 is your %2", name, relationship);
Contexts can also be added when building forms in Qt Designer. Each widget label, including tooltips and whatsthis texts, has a "disambiguation" attribute (named "comment" prior to Qt 4.5), which will serve the same purpose as first argument to i18nc() call.
Standard Context For Common Phrases
Below is a chart showing some common words and phrases in English and the context that must be used with them to ensure proper translation of them in other languages.
| Phrase | Context | i18nc Call | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Busy | Referring to a person | i18nc("A person is busy", "Busy") | |
| Busy | Referring to a thing | i18nc("A thing is busy", "Busy") | |
| Color | Color mode, as opposed to Grayscale | i18nc("Not Grayscale", "Color") | |
| Creator | Referring to a person | i18nc("A person who creates", "Creator") | |
| Creator | Referring to software | i18nc("Software", "Creator") | |
| Display | Referring to hardware | i18nc("Hardware display", "Display") | |
| Editor | Referring to a person | i18nc("A person who edits", "Editor") | |
| Editor | Referring to software | i18nc("Software", "Editor") | |
| Line | Referring to drawing | i18nc("Draw a line", "Line") | |
| Line | Referring to text | i18nc("Line of text", "Line") | |
| Name | Referring to a name of thing | i18nc("A thing's name", "Name") | In theme change dialog: i18nc("Theme name", "Name") |
| Name | Referring to first name and last name of person | i18nc("Person's first and last name", "Name") | In KAddessbook contact edit dialog: i18nc("Person's first and last name", "Name") |
| New | Create something | i18nc("Action", "New") | |
| New | Status | i18nc("New mail message", "New") | |
| No | Answer to a question | i18nc("Answer to a question", "No") | |
| No | Availability of a thing | i18nc("Availability", "No") | |
| (Re)load | (Re)load a document, medium etc. | i18nc("(Re)load a document", "(Re)load") | |
| (Re)load | (Re)start a program, daemon etc. | i18nc("(Re)start a program", "(Re)load") | |
| Title | Referring to a person | i18nc("A person's title", "Title") | |
| Title | Referring to a thing | i18nc("A thing's title", "Title") | |
| Trash | Referring to the action of emptying | i18nc("The trash is not empty. Empty it", "Empty") | |
| Trash | Referring to the state of being empty | i18nc("The trash is empty. This is not an action, but a state", "Empty") | |
| Volume | Referring to sound | i18nc("Sound volume", "Volume") | |
| Volume | Referring to a filesystem | i18nc("Filesystem volume", "Volume") | |
| Volume | Referring to books | i18nc("Book volume", "Volume") | |
| Yes | Answer to a question | i18nc("Answer to a question", "Yes") | |
| Yes | Availability of a thing | i18nc("Availability", "Yes") |
Plurals
Plurals are handled differently from language to language. Many languages have different plurals for 2, 10, 20, 100, etc. When the string you want translated refers to more than one item, you must use the third form of i18n, the i18np(). It takes the singular and plural English forms as its first two arguments, followed by any substitution arguments as usual, but at least one of which should be integer-valued. For example:
msgStr = i18np("1 image in album %2", "%1 images in album %2", numImages, albumName);
msgStr = i18np("Delete Group", "Delete Groups", numGroups);
i18np() gets expanded to as many cases as required by the user's language. In English, this is just two forms while in other languages it may be more, depending on the value of the first integer-valued argument.
Note that this form should be used even if the string always refers to more than one item as some languages use a singular form even when referring to a multiple (typically for 21, 31, etc.). This code:
i18n("%1 files were deleted", numFilesDeleted);
is therefore incorrect and should instead be:
i18np("1 file was deleted",
"%1 files were deleted",
numFilesDeleted);
To provide context as well as pluralization, use i18ncp as in this example:
i18ncp("Personal file", "1 file", "%1 files", numFiles);
Formatting Dates and Numbers
When displaying a number to the user, your program must take care of the decimal separator, thousand separator and currency symbol (if any) being used. These symbols differ from region to region. In English speaking countries a dot (.) is used to separate the fractional part of a number, while in some European countries a comma (,) is used instead. Below is a short summary of functions that will help you format the numbers correctly, taking the local conventions into account for you.
| Formats a.. | From a.. | Function Prototype |
|---|---|---|
| Number | String | QString formatNumber( const QString & numStr ) |
| Number | Integer, double | formatNumber( double num,
int precision = -1 )
|
| Money | String | formatMoney( const QString & numStr ) |
| Money | Number | formatMoney( double num,
const QString & currency,
int digits = -1 )
|
| Date | String | formatDate( const QDate & pDate,
bool shortFormat=false )
|
| Time | QTime | formatTime( const QTime & pTime,
bool includeSecs=false)
|
| Date and time | QDateTime | formatDateTime( const QDateTime &pDateTime,
bool shortFormat = true,
bool includeSecs = false )
|
Similar functions exist to read information provided by the user at runtime in their localized format, e.g. readNumber() or readMoney().
Calendaring
Developing applications dealing with dates and time, such as calendars, is a very complex area. Not only may the displayed string containing a date or time look different based on locale, but one also has to take care of other aspects such as:
- what calendar system is being used (e.g. Hebrew, Hijri)
- which day in the week is the first one (cf int weekStartDay())
- how many months in a year there are
- "era"-based calendars
- whether to use 24-hour time format (cf bool use12Clock())
QDate only implements a hybrid Julian/Gregorian calendar system, if the user's locale has a different calendar system then any direct calls to QDate will result in incorrect dates being read and displayed, and incorrect date maths being performed. All date calculations and formatting must be performed through the KLocale and KCalendarSystem methods which provide a full set of methods matching those available in QDate. The current locale calendar system can be accessed via KGlobal::locale()->calendar(). The KLocale date formatting methods will always point to the current global calendar system.
KLocale provides, among others, these methods:
| Formats a.. | From a.. | Function Prototype |
|---|---|---|
| Date | QDate | formatDate( const QDate & pDate,
bool shortFormat=false )
|
| Time | QTime | formatTime( const QTime & pTime,
bool includeSecs=false )
|
| Date and time | QDateTime | formatDateTime( const QDateTime &pDateTime,
bool shortFormat=true,
bool includeSecs=false )
|
cleanup confusing sections and fix sections which contain a todo
provide more info on the different calendar systems
Avoiding Common Traps
There are a number of common problems that may prevent an application being properly localized. See Avoiding Common Localization Pitfalls to learn more about them, and how to avoid them.