I am using the "Export for Localization" menu option in Xcode to generate XLIFF files for our translators.
Many of these labels will be changed at runtime populated with data. Is there a way to mark these labels, buttons, etc as not needing to be translated so that they do not make it to the XLIFF files? Right now I'm keeping the labels as "Label". Is there a way to mark it as non-translatable and could put in sample data that would be changed at runtime?
This question has been asked a few times before, and the answer was no: see for example Lou Franco's question here (with a Radar ID he has opened with Apple) and another one here. Unless Apple changes this behaviour in XCode you will have to live with workarounds like using a labelling mechanism or adding translate="no" attributes to your non-translatable <trans-unit> elements in XLIFF.
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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 can see that this is a recurring problem with all sorts of Xcode versions. I'm using the latest non-beta build (9.2 9C40b).
I have already localized in Spanish. Doing that involved successful exports and imports of xliff files, with same Xcode. So what changed?
I am now trying to localize to another language. This is a showstopper. Any hints? I have looked through all the posts about previous versions crashing, and have not found anything that works.
(And before you mention it, I am done and over with genstrings. If it exists anymore.)
I've discovered that large .xliff files (more than about 6,500 lines or 1,200 <trans-unit> elements) cause Xcode 10.1 to crash consistently near the end of an import operation.
The work-around is to manually split the .xliff file into two distinct .xliff files, each containing a subset of the <file> elements in the original file. You can then import the two resulting .xliff files into Xcode separately without crashing.
Do not translate "bundle name"
I wanted to translate to Greek Language and every time I was importing xliff files, Xcode was crashing.
I realized that the problem was, that I was also translating "bundle name".
If you did the same mistake, open xliff file, find:
<trans-unit id="CFBundleName">
<source>NameOfYourApp</source>
and delete the line
<target>...</target>
After that everything worked perfect for me!
Here's a workaround. Select your project icon in the Project Navigator. Select Info at top (as opposed to Build Settings). Under Localizations, click the + button and add your new language.
Xcode will create the new .strings files and fill them up with pre-existing translations. (If there are any.) Strangely, for me, some of the new .strings files were filled in with English, some with Spanish.
In any case, you have the new .strings files and can manually paste in the translations for the new language. If your app doesn't have too much user-facing text, this isn't onerous.
But really, with this problem going back to Xcode 4 (!) one would think it would be fixed by now.
it's a late answer I know, and I'm using Xcode Version 10.1 (10B61) already.
In my scenario, I added Chinese Hong Kong (zh-HK) language under Project > Info > Localization and exported successfully then sent to the agency for translations. After few days they sent to me Chinese translated text within. At that point, everything seems correct for me by eye. But I've tried 10 times to import file and it crashes 10 times without exception! Which makes me sick. I use to checked to see the difference between 2 document via Apple's File Merge App. I understand that agency geniuses added few missing <\target> tags. Hmmm, that means while exporting Xcode didn't add for some translations <\target> tag. Interesting...
I removed those unnecessarily translated tags and checked everything was equal in 2 documents except translations of the words to the Chinese language.
Tried to import again. Then BOOM! It works like a charm! I was surprised by this. It's so weird that Xcode never shows me a descriptive message about my mistake. Probably, It's just a parse error for Xcode.
Whatever, I hope this will work for someone else.
Best.
I am learning from the iOS 9 AppCoda book on Swift (https://www.appcoda.com/swift/) and I am stuck in particular on the Localization section. So the author has gone through with changing some user-facing strings in code from just String to NSLocalizedString. That makes sense and the changes I made there were automatically updated appropriately with the XLIFF file. In the section about Localisation, the author mentions that you can also translate Storyboard user-facing Strings with the Export Localization feature of Xcode.
Because it's a book you work through, he provides an already translated XLIFF file into Chinese and German which includes the source code translated text and the Storyboard elements translated as well.
When I import the files into Xcode, I see three storyboards (Base and the Chinese/German.strings, etc) but when I run the app, none of the Storyboard elements are actually translated and only the elements from the source code.
When I click on the German Storyboard, I get the "no localized strings".
The app in his example works and the UI elements in storyboard are translated but they're not in my case. The entire app thus far has been followed with the exercises so there aren't really any differences. Or even if there are, the similarities themselves should be translated, but in the Storyboard elements, they're not.
Does anyone have any ideas on why the Storyboard elements wouldn't be updated with the Translated text in my case?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Here is my guess... Exporting localization strings from Storyboards works a little different from exporting those strings from code.
The localization file for strings from code gets the actual text from the NSLocalizedString macro and creates a mapping such as:
"Original string" = "Translated string".
So, you just have to use "Original string" in your code then Xcode knows it should translate it to "Translated string".
However, the storyboard localisation file uses the UI objects handles to set localized strings. For example:
/* Class = "UILabel"; text = "Ops..."; ObjectID = "fe4-zT-gjU"; */
"fe4-zT-gjU.text" = "Wait for it...";
In this example my storyboard has a UILabel, with the text "Ops...", and that label has an ObjectID equal to "fe4-zT-gjU".
The object IDs are kinda unique for each object in each project, so obviously the object IDs from the app coda tutorial will be unique for the project the author created; unless you have downloaded the author's original storyboard, your storyboard will have all different object IDs, so Xcode won't know how to associate the correct translations to the correct objects.
I don't think Xcode will import localisation for objects with objectIDs it doesn't recognise.
So what I think you should do is to perform an "Export for localisation" operation. This should update your storyboard .strings file. Then you copy each translation from the tutorial file into your .strings file using an xliff editor. Boring, I know. Welcome to the app development world. :-)
When you added your localization did you select the storyboard file?
If so, then check that your scheme is set to the correct language. This can be done under Product > Scheme > Edit Scheme
If that doesn't do it, then check that your simulator is set to the language you want to display. This can be done in the simulator's settings, same as an iPhone.
Hope this helps.
Well, I received this project from a buddy that used to work with me and now I am responsible for it Internalization. I need to transform the language of the app to English, that is currently Portuguese.
Although i was researching for some tutorials but all of them include one step i cannot make. I have noticed there were no files localized in any of the languages, and no folders .Iproj too.
In the info tab > Localizations shows up, in each language added in my "Resources" Tab, "0 Files Located".
as Soon as i click "Use Base Internationalization" or the "plus" button there is no file i can reference it to.
I need to follow with this project and cannot create another one, there is lots of code and configurations that need to stay in this one. Is there any solutions?
Thanks!
PS: StackOverflow won't let me post images yet :(
Have you ever visited this panel?
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.