I have Googled this for hours but could find no advice for the following problem (using Swift).
I have seen in many apps an option to select the language from inside the app like this:
(source: unity3d.com)
I would like to achieve something similar, but am having trouble implementing it. I have localized my app and have my Localizable.strings files all set up. I'd imagine it has something to do with storing the language selected in NSUserDefaults, but how can I make the app use the appropriate Localizable.strings file once a language has been chosen? Or is that the wrong way to approach it?
How have others successfully implemented this feature in Swift?
I've already faced this issue on one of my project and found one solution :
When the user select a language from a list, post a NSNotification. All your UIViewController subclass must register to this notification and change the labels value according to the new language selected.
You can use the localized strings in order to set the labels, but NSLocalizedString(...) shouldn't be called since it's relying on the device language which is different from the application language.
You can find my implementation of a custom localisator on Github, available both on Swift and objective-C.
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TLDR: Xcode generated storyboards for each language, however I want the "old"(?) *.strings files. How?
I am currently in the process of localising my storyboards. After I enabled everything, Xcode generated another storyboard alongside the original (english) one for me to localise. I was surprised, I expected a Localizable.strings file, like the apple documentation still states as of April 3, 2021:
For storyboard and XIB interfaces, select the user interface files (files with a .storyboard or .xib filename extension). Xcode adds a strings file to the localization folder that contains the text to translate, as well as comments that describe the user interface components. For example, if you add German to an iOS app that uses storyboards, LaunchScreen.storyboard becomes a group containing a LaunchScreen.storyboard (Base) and LaunchScreen.strings (German) file.
I searched around the internet, in apple developer forums, watched both WWDC18 and 19 talks about localisation in Xcode, but did not find a single mention of translated storyboards.
After the initial translation, which works great due to the simplicity of just filling everything in, it gets frustrating however, since every layout change needs to be repeated for every language. This can't be intended, there must be a better way, right? Sadly, I didn't find anything. Even a hint to a piece of documentation regarding these storyboard copies would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
There are some screenshots of the possibility to convert these two formats via a dropdown, like the third picture in this post. However for me, there is no dropdown next to the language item when I click the storyboard, neither on the group, nor individual base or localised ones:
Is this a bug or am I missing something here? I am using macOS Big Sur 11.2.3 with Xcode 12.4 (12D4e).
Turns out, you need to use the Base Localization feature, the dropdown then appears and you can convert existing storyboards to *.strings files.
I would like to relase two versions of the same appliaction in different languages. (to be clear - I don't want to release just one app with option to change language but two apps, each one in different language).
The process of app localizationing is described for instance in this tutorial http://www.appcoda.com/ios-programming-tutorial-localization-apps/ but it creates one app with option to change languages.
My question is - is it possible following this method to build (archive) an application in just one language, and then the second one in another?
If not please advise me what would be the best method to do so?
Two exactly the same but separate applications imho - not the best choice!
it means two source code projects, right, with localized separate xibs, stories etc?!
You know why?! Simply because it's difficult to support.
If you need to fix something -> welcome to fix in both projects etc...
You should follow the tutorial and create localized application for two different languages.
I'm assuming to submit both versions to appStore you need to:
When submitting:
set different languages as a default
replace bundle identifier smtl like
com.yourCompany.yourAppName_english/spanish
so you can submit the same application but with different default language.
This is just theoretical... hope it helps
One Language App = No Localization = No need to follow the tutorial
(you just build the app with all NSString with one language)
Your Localized App support more than one language will need to follow the tutorial
I'm trying to localize an ios app after it was launched.
We should be able to select the desired language on the startup screen.
The app is already localized and available for 13 languages.
The only solution I found is to set the locale and relaunch the app, but we can't really do that, as it's not user friendly, and Apple will probably reject it.
The project contains most of a thousand of xib files, so I can't change all the resources "manually" either.
Is there any solution to reload the UIApplication ? Or an other trick to change the locale on the fly (and allowed by Apple) ?
I found lots of threads which were talking about this, but none very interesting compared to the scale of the project.
I don't think there is a way to do what you want without coming up with a custom solution. I found a solution on StackOverflow here where a user created his own localization solution.
I have the Storyboard, Base language and translated all the app into another language, so far it's working fine.
I would like to know, when I add new elements in the Storyboard that needs to be localized, how do you keep the strings file up to date.
I tried a suggestion, which is to switch this: to Interface Builder Cocoa Storyboard and then back to Localizable Strings, however the results are not good, most of the translation is lost and switched back to the Base language.
Is there a handy tool to regenerate and merge the strings in Storyboard? I tried few scripts but they always ended up wiping everything.
I've modified a skript that i've found here on stackoverflow to be able to also handle the localized strings in storyboards.
The skript only adds new key-value pairs to the .strings file, but keeps the ones that you have already translated.
You can get it from my github, for more details about my localization workflow read my blogpost
I was wondering if somebody could explain in the details how I can localize an iOS app using only 1 storyboard. I know how to localize by creating several storyboards(one storyboard for each used language), however I'd like to find out another solution.
Thanks.
The tutorial on raywenderlich.com uses two forms of localization together. The reason is he also checks the storyboard when turning on localisation in image 3:
.
So then what?
NSLocalizedString is very useful, any text set programatically can (and should) be localised using this method. Ray's tutorial is still very useful.
However, it's not very desirable to create a clone of the storyboard(s) to do translation, it's just not very maintainable in the long run.
And what about storyboards?
The magic happens using the Base Localization feature. Base localization uses the generated objectId's to 'map' different languages to the storyboard.
Do note that this feature is only available using SDK 6.0 and above. Running the app on a lower iOS version will not cause any errors, it'll simply won't work.
Go to your project, and select Base Localization, then add any other language.
Open your storyboard file and check the new language as well. Note the icon is not a storyboard icon, but a simple text file icon. That's a good thing; it won't copy the whole storyboard this time :).
Note how there is now another file 'under' the storyboard. Xcode automatically generates a file for every language you select.
You can se Localization feature for this. You need to add the Localizable.strings file for each supported language and use it for locaization.
You need to use : NSLocalizedString() for fetcing data corresponding to each key.
Check this tutorial for details.