How to provide i18n service for developer and e...

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Many android applications have quite poor i18n-support, and for an understandable reason, as it adds much work for the developer. From a both intuitive and cultural point of view it would be a good thing if end-users could translate the apps themself, and OTA share the translation, without reinstalling the app itself. In concept; as wikipedia, some add content easily, others only use what's there. It's of course important that the service is as easy as possible to use, both for app-developers, and people willing to transcribe. To keep it simple, this is the solution I'm concidering; Developer perspective: Developer uses a customized setContentView when open activities/layouts that will seach for thanslations of xml-entries. (below) The customized version is provided as a free downloadable library/class..., turning the i18n feature to more or less a one liner. User perspective: User downloads app without any translation As app launches, it checks locale running at phone, and will look for a translated xml-file at shared space in SD. If no or old transcribed xml (above), try to download new from internet-service (ansync). This is all done by library above, no need for intents. Translator perspective: Separate app to provide translations for any app using the i18n service above. (Could be just a webapp), with some form of QA on translators/input. QUESTION: Now, for this to work efficiently, it has to be AeasyAP for the developer to even bother, and the most fluent solution would be a customized version of setContentView, that simply loads the translated values from external xml, instead of the ones in the apk. Is this possible at all, and if not, what's your suggested solutions? (And of course, Happy New Year, feliz ano novo, blwyddyn newydd dda, Gott Nytt År, kontan ane nouvo, szczęśliwego nowego roku ...) Regards, /T java android internationalization culture share | improve this question asked Dec 30 '10 at 10:46 user247245 2,330 12 28

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Yes, it's possible only if someone (probably you or me or others) will rewritesetContentView()- since I see root of a problem only there. Let me explain: Layout XML's are stored in res/layout which packaged in APK There's no way to modify APK runtime (at least I've never heard about it) That means basically you can't redefine on-line/runtime customized/internationalized layout XML's in res/layout So you'd need a place where to store customized XML's: either in preferences or in SQLite In both cases one'd need to inflate XML in Activity/Dialog, which can be done throughsetContentView So in the end - you have to redefine setContentView How to do that? 2 options: Heroic: completely rewrite setContentView in Android sources Less heroic: create your ownOwnActivityclass which will redefinesetContentView(int id). For instance:OwnActivity.setContentView()looks inside SQLite for known XML id with current locale, if not found it inflates XML from res/layout EDIT1: You can override it like: public class MyActivity extends Activity { @Override public void setContentView(int id) { if(checkPresenceInStorage(id)) //... else super.setContentView(id); } } share | improve this answer edited Dec 30 '10 at 13:56 answered Dec 30 '10 at 12:38 barmaley 5,872 2 26 53

Thanks for answering, To clarify, resources aren't hardcoded into layout upon compile, right? Since it would ruin apps that do have i18n, so that's the function that should be hooked. The heroic approach should be done by google I guess, and even if so, it would leave an awful lot current phones (2.1) in the cold. The less heroic approach is what I'm aiming at, if only I could debug with "step into" on setContentView I could recreate a class with the requested extended functionality, but I can't right? –  user247245 Dec 30 '10 at 12:55 Right now in Android resources are hardcoded into app... –  barmaley Dec 30 '10 at 13:15 That doesn't make sense, I understand that everything is inside the apk but not hardcoded into layout. Some linking has to be executed at runtime, or else the drawable-ldpi/mdpi/hdpi wouldn't function. –  user247245 Dec 30 '10 at 13:24 Your task during inflating XML into real device not to intercept how it's working, but inflate needed XML (localized one). So in my opinion it should looks like: read correct XML from storage and during setContentView() inflate it rather than those stored in res/layout –  barmaley Dec 30 '10 at 13:50 I new it, Romain Guy came to rescue, even before asking, at groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/…. "ViewInflateClass", androidjavadoc.com/m5-rc15/android/view/…. –  user247245 Dec 30 '10 at 16:25

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Regarding the second part of the question, it is possible to use an existing translation service like Launchpad, which operates on .po files for gettext. There is however android2po, which can transform between Android's XML and the gettext .po format. There are already some Android translations on Launchpad, e.g. ConnectBot, however the service requires a login to be able to contribute. Alternatively, you should look at the available gettext-based web translator suites you can run yourself as well, like Pootle. Sorry, I am not allowed to post more than one URL. Please google the rest up :( share | improve this answer answered Dec 30 '10 at 14:32 ge0rg 620 6 16

Thanks for the info. However, for UGC, the approach must be much simpler I belive. –  user247245 Dec 30 '10 at 14:42

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layoutinflator.factory is what I was looking for... share | improve this answer answered Dec 30 '10 at 21:18 user247245 2,330 12 28

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