One of the software I've translated was AZPR (Advanced ZIP Password Recovery). I needed it to retrieve the password of an archive file I had lost. As far as I remember the software was free then but I'm not sure as it was many years ago (there is a great chance I had not even used Windows XP yet then). Anyway, the software was proposed with language files and I was happy I can do it myself without waiting for the developers of the software to propose my language.
It was great because all I had to do is copy the English file, call it "French" and translate the strings into a simple file editor (I used notepad for sure). It's as simple as it is fun but every software do not use simple text files for their language information. Some others uses binaries such as DLL files for instance. You cannot edit these with a simple text editor but you need what we call a resource hacker (software of course). As the names tells, its purpose is to “hack” so-called “resource files”. There are also many ways to manage language related resources. I first heard of resource files when I was reading books about Visual C++ development. In the chapters explaining how the Dialog Editor works you are explained many interesting things. One tool I used then is Resource Hacker or ResHack which is quite popular.
There are plenty of similar tools but I keep with free software always. ResHack is quite an old piece of software and even if the author did a new version last year (beta) it is not published on the site as far as I know. As a Japanese language student I'm interested in Japanese language software and ResHack is not the best choice then as it is not simple to manage Unicode with it.
Let's see a quick example of software translation. Yet another software I like : Irfan View. There is already a Japanese translation and even if it is officially out-dated it still works fine with the newest version. Let's say there is no Japanese translation for Irfan View and you want to do it. The author gives you a so-called "translation SDK" which contains a base DLL and a Readme file that explains the steps. All you have to do is (backup) edit that file with an editor. For that purpose I used ResEdit, another free software which makes it a lot easier to work with Japanese strings.
You can see on the right (notice I've modified the interface to my taste) a tree-list in which resources are sorted by type (dialog, menus,strings and even icons and maybe more). An editor zone shows you the appropriate one depending on the type of the resource. I translated just a few entries in the menu and as you can see it works fine.
I also would like to focus on the fact that if it works it is because and thanks to a standard I like much : Unicode. Back to the Windows 9x era I was interested in application development but also in Japanese language and obviously one thing I tried to do was to develop applications that displayed Japanese GUI and information. Without Unicode there are two possibilities. First your symbols are replaced by question marks and second your text is replaced by unreadable strings such as èªã‚ãªã„文書.
Unicode was already existing but it wasn't as simple as writing in Japanese into your GUI, you had to adapt it. Windows was then using ANSI but now it is based on Unicode which makes things simpler. I was happy when I made my Delphi test program display both my interface and the data I retrieved from a MySQL database in Japanese and also write them back in Japanese into the database without any kind of problems.
Today I'm interested into Java and it is very simple to get the interface in Japanese but sometimes you have to explicitly precise you want to process your streams with Unicode compliant character sets if you don't want to lose data when sending them through a socket. Actually the problem is related to the system locale.
Rather than developing, I've been translating a few piece of software since then but I have forgotten the names of many of them. Anyway translating software is something I like to do so I'm pleased to contribute to software translations as far as I can. I like to do a complete work and if possible I prefer translating an application from A to Z and so I appreciate simple ones but I also contribute to greater projects and if it had to be done quickly you need a whole team of volunteers to have it done fast.
Here are some of the projects I have contributed to (I keep an eye on them sometimes):
- Green Shot : initial French translation in XML file. The file as been accepted by the authors and is the official translation. I have to see regularly if new strings are needed to be translated.
- Ubuntu : The Linux operating system I use as a user (I like the Debian branch). I've been contributing mostly to the French translation.
- Anki : The SRS software I use in order to self-teach me Japanese. I bet if I knew this piece of software earlier my learning would have been much more efficient. I contributed to French translation.
- Eclipse : My RAD (Rapid Application Development software) of choice. I use it in my learning of Java. In the beginning I used to be incapable of working without the Visual Editor addon but now I prefer avoiding it and coding my GUI myself.. Contributing to the French translation
- Tagaini Jisho : Another great software I use in my Japanese studies but actually I've not been contributing to it yet. The project is already translated in French so it looks like my services are not needed here. I proposed my help to translate the software in Japanese and Polish though. As far as there is no Polish dictionary this one may be postponed or rejected but I hope they'll let me translate it in Japanese even if it may take some time to be sure of the accuracy of my translations.
Nowadays with open-source software, there are plenty of opportunities to contribute into software translation but it's true you translate the software you like with more pleasure than you would on a software you almost don't know. This is then nothing surprising the software I contribute to are the one I use and I like.