[Pythoncard-users] internationalization

Part of the point of resource files is that someone other than the coder
should be able to translate the various menus, fields, buttons, labels,
strings used in dialogs, etc. to another language increasing the target
audience for a program. As part of the PythonCard framework and
documentation we can provide guidelines for writing programs that are easier
to internationalize by providing conventions to follow.

I would like to have at least one sample that deals with
internationalization issues. I don't expect to completely solve this issue
in one pass, especially since we don't have complete Unicode support for use
everywhere.

The relevant module in Python is locale:
  http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-locale.html

I do not know whether wxPython has additional internationalization features
we should be aware of.

I plan to add support for strings and other country/language dependent
elements in the resource file. It would be relatively simple for the
framework to check the users locale when it starts up and use the
appropriate resource file. The user code would of course have to use the
right string, date, and number formatting to work transparently. The user
code would not have to maintain a separate set of handlers or names
referencing resource objects since the names such as 'menuFileExit' are ids
never seen by the user, only by the user code.

For example, if we used country codes, we might have:

minimal.rsrc.py
minimal.fr.rsrc.py

Showing that a "French" version of the resource is available and should be
used if the users locale default was French. Of course, the users preferred
language is not the same as their country, so using a language identifier
might be a better choice. In fact, we probably need to deal with language
and country independently.

If someone could volunteer to help chase down relevant internationalization
issues, help with doing an international PythonCard sample, that would be a
great help. This is not an area of expertise for me, but I know it is
something we have address at some point and I would like to get it on the
radar now rather than later.

Other suggestions, places to look for help, etc.?

ka