Fearless Internationalization and Localization Across the

Nations Siena Aguayo

Software Engineer at Indiegogo @sienatime

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•  What are l10n and i18n?

Overview

•  Why should I care?

•  How do I internationalize my Android app?

•  What other cool things can I do?

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What are l10n and i18n?

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localization internationalization

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Localization

•  Displaying data (dates, numbers, currencies, etc.) according to target region

•  Adjusting branding according to target culture

BUSINESS •  Translating content into target languages

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Internationalization

•  Preparing your app for localized content

•  Defining alternate resource files

•  Using number and date formatters

•  Designing and implementing flexible layouts

ENGINEERING

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localization internationalization

not just translation™

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Why should I care?

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EMPATHY

Android peeps made with androidify.com

Android is everywhere!

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From a technical perspective...

•  Separation of concerns

•  Organization & readability

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ya ain’t gonna need it (you’re not going to need it)

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How do I internationalize my Android app?

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How do I prepare my Android app for localized content?

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What content is localizable?

•  Strings

•  Numbers and currency

•  Dates and time

•  Images with text on them (avoid)

•  Audio and video files

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Resource Files Java

Strings Images Audio Video

Numbers Currency Dates Time

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Resource Files

•  Have a set of default resources

•  Define alternates as you need them

res values strings.xml

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Strings

•  Don’t hardcode strings that face the user

•  Use position placeholders %1$s %2$s

•  Provide context for your translators to help make their job easier

I need to %s interpolate %s I need to %1$s interpolate %2$s

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Android Is on Your Side

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<string name="app_name" translatable="false"> Indiegogo </string>

Hey, Don’t Translate This

Helpful lint errors

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<string name="campaign_ended_label" note="example: Ended on January 21, 2014"> Ended on %s </string>

XML Is Extensible

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Numbers & Currencies

import java.text.NumberFormat; NumberFormat numberFormat = NumberFormat.getInstance(); textView.setText(numberFormat.format(36965));

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*.java res.getQuantityString(

R.plurals.number_of_fb_friends, count, numberFormat.format(count)

);

strings.xml <plurals name="number_of_fb_friends"> <item quantity="one">%s friend</item> <item quantity="other">%s friends</item> </plurals>

Plurals

beware of %d

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Dates & Time // DateFormat.getDateFormat (short) // DateFormat.getMediumDateFormat // DateFormat.getLongDateFormat

en_US short: 08/07/2015 medium: Aug 7, 2015 long: August 7, 2015

en_AU short: 07/08/2015 medium: 7 Aug 2015 long: 7 August 2015

DateFormat dateFormatter = DateFormat.getDateFormat(context); Date now = new Date(); dateFormatter.format(now);

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Custom Date Formats: API 18+

String formatString = DateFormat.getBestDateTimePattern( Locale.getDefault(), "MMMMyyyy" ); SimpleDateFormat dateFormatter = new SimpleDateFormat(formatString); Date now = new Date(); String dateString = dateFormatter.format(now);

en_US: August 2015 ja_JP: 2015年8月

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Custom Date Formats: API <18 •  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

•  Collect date formats you need and keep them in your resources

•  ...but Android is still going to format according to the user’s locale even if you don’t support it

•  Joda-Time

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Multi-Format Spannables

Try to avoid

public void setSpan (Object what, int start, int end, int flags)

I’m some fancy spanned text! spanned

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Multi-Format Spannables

Replace, if you can, with HTML in your strings.xml (limited tag support)

textView.setText(Html.fromHtml( res.getString(R.string.fixed_funding)) );

<string name="flexible_funding"> <![CDATA[ <b>Flexible Funding.</b> Campaign keeps all funds raised. ]]> </string>

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Build Flexible Layouts

•  Thank God for wrap_content

•  Be mindful of line lengths

•  What would happen if these two pieces of data needed to be switched around?

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What other cool things can I do?

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Android Studio Translations Editor

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Google Play App Translation Service

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Google Play Developer Console → Statistics

•  What languages and countries your users are in

•  How your app compares to others in your category

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Smartling

•  Paid translation service

•  API and Java SDK

•  Update strings files with a push and a pull

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Smartling: Push

$ ./smartling.sh push Pushing strings.xml to smartling... ApiResponse[data=UploadFileData[stringCount=207,wordCount=506,overWritten=false],code=SUCCESS,messages=[]]

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Smartling: Pull $ ./smartling.sh pull Pulling non-English locales from smartling... pulling fr-Fr from smartling... saved fr-Fr to /app/src/main/res/values-fr/strings.xml pulling de-DE from smartling... saved de-DE to /app/src/main/res/values-de/strings.xml pulling es from smartling... saved es to /app/src/main/res/values-es/strings.xml

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Further Reading

●  Localizing with Resources http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/localization.html

●  Localization Checklist http://developer.android.com/distribute/tools/localization-checklist.html

●  Google Play App Translation Service blog post http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2013/11/app-translation-service-now-available.html

●  Smartling API http://docs.smartling.com/pages/API/v2/ ●  Smartling Java SDK

http://docs.smartling.com/pages/API/v2/SDKs/#Java

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Go out and be fearless!

Any questions? @sienatime