Slides from Kyle Davis's iOS App Localization presentation at the Houston iPhone Developer Meetup Group

1. !
Kyle Davis, Head Geek
BigSprocket
http://www.flickr.com/photos/56013895@N00/122872445
Beginning iOS
Localization

2. When Was
My Last?
My first localized app.
!
Currently: Spanish, French,
German (and, of course, English)
http://whenwasmylast.com

3. Example Project - “Events”
Small app, unlocalized
“Localize” to English
Localize to Spanish

4. Demo

5. Unlocalized
Strings are hard-coded, and spread throughout the
app
System-localizable elements are in English, even when
simulator is in Spanish

6. Preparing for Localization
Use system items (UIBarButtonSystemItem,
UIDatePicker, etc)
Use Auto Layout
Tell Xcode you’ll be localizing the project
Use NSLocalizedString

7. NSLocalizedString
Instead of @“foo”, use
NSLocalizedString(@“foo”…
Looks for a string with the key “foo” in the file
Localizable.strings, in the language folder
If it doesn’t exist, it looks in the Base folder
If it doesn’t exist there, it returns “foo”

8. Demo

9. Localized to English
✓Auto Layout
✓Added Localization in Project file
✓Added NSLocalizedString macro
✓Used genstrings to create base localization
✓Ready for Translation

10. Personal Design Decisions
No NIB localization
Strings Factory
You may decide to do things differently.

11. Language.lproj
Any file with localized content
.strings, .xib, html, text
image, sound, video
Standard file loaders understand it
imageNamed:
pathForResource:ofType:

12. Language Resources
Friends
Google Translate (sparingly, and only if you have to)
Third party professional translators
AppleGlot

13. Third Party Translators
Apple maintains a list at
http://developer.apple.com/internationalization
iCanLocalize.com
oneskyapp.com

14. AppleGlot
http://developer.apple.com/internationalization
Reads translation glossaries and substitutes text
directly back into nib files
Supports incremental translations
I did not use it …
… but Apple also supplies their glossaries, which are
damn handy

15. Demo

16. Localized to Spanish
✓
Use language glossaries to find translations
✓
Use 3rd parties for things not covered by Apple already
✓
Use date formatter templates for locale differences
✓
Use InfoPlist.strings to localize app name

17. Almost There!
App Store Metadata
Description
Screenshots
Keywords

18. NSLocalizedStringFromTable
NSLocalizedStringFromTable(@“key”,
@“table”, @“comment”)
Reads from table.strings
Save time and money
No need to have 3rd parties translate Apple’s text
Reuse your tables on the next project

19. Tools I Didn’t Cover
ibtool - localize your nib files
.stringsdict - rules-based handling of special cases, like
plurals
twine - fix some of the broken parts of the process

20. Links
Apple Internationalization resources
http://developer.apple.com/internationalization
Florian Kugler on string localization
http://www.objc.io/issue-9/string-localization.html
Ole Begemann on Automating Strings Extraction from
Storyboards/Nibs
http://tinyurl.com/mmxaeeq
Twine
https://github.com/mobiata/twine

21. Links
Slide deck
http://www.slideshare.net/bigsprocket/beginning-iosapp-localization
Final project source
http://github.com/bigsprocket/Localization
When Was My Last?
http://whenwasmylast.com/

22. Kyle Davis
info@bigsprocket.com
@bigsprocket
http://textimage.us
kyle@bigsprocket.com
@kylebits