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TLangSup

TLangSup is a Borland Object Pascal / Delphi class for internationalization / national language support.

The property Caption of a form and its subcomponents can be translated 'online', without the necessity of leaving the program. Data are stored in a pipe '|' separated text file which you can easily give away for external translators.

Status: Freeware; modify and use it at your own risk. I'd be glad if you left a comment in the source file about the original author, Joachim Pimiskern.

Download langsup1.0.zip (162kB)

Example

uses
  langsup;

type
  TForm1 = class(TForm)
    ...
  private
    language: TLangSup;
  end;

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
  language := TLangSup.Create('Deutsch');
  language.LoadFromFile(ExtractFilePath(Application.Exename) + 'language.txt');
  language.SetLanguage('Deutsch');
  language.SetContext('Demo Main');
end;

procedure TForm1.FormDestroy(Sender: TObject);
begin
  // Store the language file since the user
  // may have changed the data.
  language.SaveToFile(ExtractFilePath(Application.Exename) + 'language.txt');
  language.Free;
end;

procedure TForm1.ComboBox1Change(Sender: TObject);
begin
  language.SetLanguage(Combobox1.Text);
  language.SetCaptions(self);
end;

The role of the context

TLangSup relies on the assumption that a combination of language + context + text is unique in a project. A context is simply a string, like language, and can be set with the method setContext(...). It's a good idea to set the context when a form is entered. But don't forget to restore a prior context in the case you've one global instance of TLangSup.

How to add a language

In the above example, when Combobox1 changes, the method SetCaptions() is called. It tries to translate all Captions on all components. If no translation can be found, '???' is returned. After the language file has been saved, you can identify the unknown words by a <<<word>>> embracement. So adding a language is simply trying to translate a word into this language.

Later, when nothing more is added to the language file, you can retrieve all available languages with TLangSup.GetLanguages(...).

Adding translations from within a program

The form TFormAddLanguage (addlang.pas) allows the user to add translations by himself. Here, an instance of this form class is called after its public Language property is set to self.language, the TLangSup component of the calling form. 

procedure TForm1.ButtonLearnClick(Sender: TObject);
var FormAddLanguage: TFormAddLanguage;
begin
  FormAddLanguage := TFormAddLanguage.Create(nil);
  try
    FormAddLanguage.Language := self.language;
    FormAddLanguage.ShowModal;
  finally
    FormAddLanguage.Free;
  end;
end;




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