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Java Forum / General / May 2007

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Internationalization: *current* locale and localized keystrokes

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Karsten Wutzke - 15 May 2007 14:51 GMT
Hello all!

If have two questions:

1. What is the call to set the CURRENT locale? And I mean current, not
default. In my app, the user will have the choice of selecting any
language s/he wants (which has a reason).

2. Is it a best practice to localize key strokes? Localizing button/
action names, tooltips and mnemonics seem self-explanatory, but what
about keystrokes?

Example:

English: "User Data" -> Ctrl-U
German: "Benutzerdaten" -> Ctrl-B

As far as I can see even very popular apps don't localize them, as
seen in my German Firefox where there are:

Ctrl-P for "Print" (in German this "should be" "Drucken" -> Ctrl-D)
Ctrl-F for "Find" (in German this "should be" "Seite durchsuchen" ->
Ctrl-S? Ctrl-D? Ctrl-F?)

Here, Ctrl-S would collide with the "Save" operation, Ctrl-D would
collide with "Add bookmark" operation (if it existed)... all users
used to these shortcuts will definitely be frustrated. Also think of
all the operations:

Ctrl-Z Undo
Ctrl-Y Redo
Ctrl-X Cut
Ctrl-C Copy
Ctrl-V Paste

What are the further pros/cons? What is the common practice?

My personal opinion is rather against localizing keystrokes, but if
the arguments are right, I'm ready to change my mind...

Karsten
Ricardo Palomares Martinez - 15 May 2007 18:36 GMT
Karsten Wutzke escribió:
> 2. Is it a best practice to localize key strokes? Localizing button/
> action names, tooltips and mnemonics seem self-explanatory, but what
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> My personal opinion is rather against localizing keystrokes, but if
> the arguments are right, I'm ready to change my mind...

A bit OT here, but anyway...

Microsoft has the nasty habit of localizing shortcuts, and
OpenOffice.org sadly has bitten the bait, but I strongly oppose to it
(I volunteer to translate Mozilla applications) and, as a matter of
fact, is a Mozilla Localization policy NOT to translate shortcuts. To
the best of my knowledge, most software makers seem to honor this and
don't translate shortcuts.

Of course, translating accesskeys (mnemonics), like _F_ile ->
_A_rchivo, is a completely different thing, and we strive to get all
of them correctly localized so the final accesskey belongs to the
associated label.

HTH

Signature

If it's true that we are here to help others,
then what exactly are the OTHERS here for?

Karsten Wutzke - 16 May 2007 23:35 GMT
On 15 Mai, 19:36, Ricardo Palomares Martinez <rpm.PU...@iespana.es>
wrote:
> Karsten Wutzke escribió:
>
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
>
> HTH

Veery helpful thanks a lot!

Karsten


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