Looks good! A few comments: * The directory names are a bit odd - why do they have an extraneous 'r' in them? Also, why "layout-land" and not "layout-landscape"? I guess it's too late to change this now but the rest of the Android/ Java APIs eschew abbreviations.
* Are there any tools that can help translate the strings.xml? I know there are graphical tools to assist the translator for the GNU po format, perhaps there are equivalents? * You might want to link to helpful resources, for instance, the Sun translation style guidelines can help keep translations consistent across applications: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/style-guides/ Of course they are not well tuned for Android, but it's a start and better than nothing. Android specific translation guides can be written by volunteers perhaps. * Maybe advise on how to assist translators with string comments? * Maybe spell out that right-to-left languages aren't currently supported? I think it'll need a more thorough discussion when they are. * The example uses flags. That's fine for an example but I'd advise NOT using flags to represent languages or cultures in shipping production software, flags are just a huge minefield that will explode in your face. It'll be fine whilst Android phones are limited to US/EU markets and go horribly wrong later. So maybe either change the example to not use flags, or if it's too late for that, comment that it's a bad idea to do this in general. * No discussion of other l18n issues like currency symbols, decimal points, collation algorithms etc? * Maybe include some simple, generic advice about localization to other cultures, like these sections from the GNOME HIG discussion of icons: http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/icons-design.html.en Do not include body parts in the icon Because GNOME aims to be an international desktop, it needs to avoid imagery that is potentially offensive or crass to other cultures. A prime source of offensive imagery is various body parts in a number of different configurations. Aside from offensive gestures with the hands, arms or fingers; body parts that are considered "clean" in one culture (such as eyes), will be considered tasteless or gross to another (such as a nose). Based on a survey of icons in GNOME, body parts frequently appear in the least communicative icons (often "pointing" at some element in the icon); they are being used as an ineffective crutch for poor metaphor. In these situations body parts should not be used. Even in situations where the metaphor is appropriate (for example an eye representing the sawfish appearance capplet) it is better to avoid using a body part Do not base icons off word puns This should be avoided for a couple reasons, the most obvious of which is that puns do not translate well. For example, representing the "system log monitor" as a log will likely be uncommunicative in languages other than English. Additionally, most users do not comprehend the word play until it is too late for the icon to assist them. Even after being familiar with the "system log monitor" being represented as a log, users do not form the association fast enough for the icon to assist through in scanning through menu entries. A popular instance of this problem was the proliferation of icons representing the "World Wide Web" as a spider web in the mid 1990s. Part of the value of icons is that they bypass linguistic comprehension and hence are complementary to captions, allowing users to utilize more areas of the mind than linguistic recognition (already used in scanning for captions) when they hunt for items. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
