-----Original Message-----
From: r-sig-gui-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch [mailto:r-sig-gui-
bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of Ulrike Groemping
Sent: November-11-08 9:17 AM
To: r-sig-gui at stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: Re: [R-gui] tcltk internationalization for built-in buttons
Hello Philippe,
I see now that I was being naive in assuming that resetting language
settings in Windows would do anything to the buttons - they of course sell
multilanguage support nowadays, and I seem to have a one-language-only
version.
I think that I can live with option 1). If users understand their Windows
buttons, they will also understand the R buttons, and I can use my time
better than spending it on 2) and 3). (Of course, users of Rcmdr will
appreciate that buttons and messages match!)
Regarding msgcat vs. R-internal, I only resorted to msgcat because I found
it easier to find out how to use it. I think I will replace the ilab
function in my toy example by a gettext version as soon as I find out how to
do that (I suppose I can take that from the .onLoad function in Rcmdr).
However, I cannot check that it works before I have packaged my package, can
I ? That's a disadvantage of the R-internal approach vs. the msgcat approach
at the stage I am currently in.
By the way, do you know why tcltk2 causes the two commands below to stop
functioning?
tcl("::msgcat::mcload","C:/testdirectory")
ilab <- function(lab)
tclvalue(tcl("namespace","eval","::tcl::minidummy","::msgcat::mc",.Tcl.args(l
ab)))
Regards, Ulrike
Philippe Grosjean wrote:
Hello Ulrike,
I think that the reason why default buttons are not translated is
because they are managed by Windows. You have no control on their text.
Running on a Windows in English, you got those buttons in English,
Windows in German -> buttons in German, etc...
So, three options from there:
1) You just assume that the end-users want the GUI in the same language
as Windows,... or accept to have default buttons in Window's language if
they switch to another internationalisation,
2) Do the same as in R commander: rewrite the dialog boxes so that they
don't use default Windows buttons (almost impossible for file
open/close, dir choose, etc. dialog boxes)!
3) Use AutoIt or AutoHotKey to change the default buttons messages (with
lots of sweat, you can compile a satellite program to do so),... or with
even more time and effort, compile a C function in R that calls the
right API to change default buttons' messages in your dialog boxes.
Sorry that I cannot give you a better solution...
Oh yes, regarding translation of Tcl/Tk messages from within R, I really
believe that translating these messages using the R mechanism instead of
msgcat in Tcl is much better. That way, you centralize all translations
(R functions and GUI elements) in a single translation file. It is the
approach used by R Commander, by the way. So, you got inspiration from
there for your own code.
Best,
Philippe
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) ) ) ) )
( ( ( ( ( Prof. Philippe Grosjean
) ) ) ) )
( ( ( ( ( Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems
) ) ) ) ) Mons-Hainaut University, Belgium
( ( ( ( (
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Ulrike Groemping wrote:
Dear R-SIG-GUIs,
documentation of getLanguage / setLanguage in tcltk2 pointed me towards
the
msgcat package in Tcl/Tk, and I used it for internationalizing my GUI
entries - trying to avoid having to write individual tools like
RcmdrTkmessagebox etc. I am an absolute Tcl/Tk beginner and still looking
for the final strategy to do a larger GUI project in, currently working
on
Windows with R 2.8.0 or R 2.7.1 (behave identical). And one important
aspect
is internationalization.
I have now managed to program my draft and not yet functional GUI in
English
and show it in German by using an msg file with msgcat. On my computer,
everything shows well in German. Then I got the idea that it would be
nice
to show an msgcat example in the help for getLanguage/setLanguage, and I
prepared a toy example for sending to Philippe (cf. below). However,
while
changing the language does change most messages, it does not work with
built-in buttons - these remain German on my machine, even if I restart
my
computer after changing system settings for all language aspects I could
find on my computer from German to English.
I remember having read something like that from John, when he started
internationalizing Rcmdr, but I had thought it would be long solved by
now.
Since internationalization appears to work at installation time
(otherwise
my buttons wouldn't be in German), and since there are many tcltk message
files in the Tcl directory, it looks to me - as a possibly rather naive
tcltk novice - that one would just have to find a way to reset some
environment variable or otherwise direct tcltk to look in the right
places.
Any thoughts on that ?
Regards, Ulrike
####### the toy example follows
require(tcltk)
### the following two lines must be executed BEFORE loading tcltk2
### otherwise they do not work !!!
tcl("::msgcat::mcload","C:/testdirectory")
ilab <- function(lab)
tclvalue(tcl("namespace","eval","::tcl::minidummy","::msgcat::mc",.Tcl.args(l
ab)))
## mini example of German tcl message file
## has to be saved under name de.msg
## in the testdirectory given above
## without the comment character in lines below
## (it is important to avoid line breaks within individual mset entries)
#namespace eval ::tcl::minidummy {
# ::msgcat::mcset de "If you choose Yes, all unsaved inputs will be
lost."
"Wenn Sie Ja w?hlen, gehen alle noch nicht gespeicherten Eingaben
verloren."
# ::msgcat::mcset de "Really Exit WITHOUT Save ?" "Wirklich OHNE
Speichern Beenden ?"
# ::msgcat::mcset de "Yes pressed" "Ja gedr?ckt"
# ::msgcat::mcset de "No pressed" "Nein gedr?ckt"
#}
imsgboxtest <- function(){
td <- tclvalue(tkmessageBox(message=ilab("If you choose Yes, all unsaved
inputs will be lost."),
title=ilab("Really Exit WITHOUT Save
?"),type="yesno",default="yes",icon="question"))
if (td == "yes") cat(paste(ilab("Yes pressed"),"\n")) else
cat(paste(ilab("No pressed"),"\n"))
}
imsgboxtest()
require(tcltk2) ## ruins functionality of the load and function
definition
above
## if loaded too early!
oldlang <- getLanguage()
if (oldlang != "") {
# Switch to English and test a command that issues a warning
if (setLanguage("en_US")) imsgboxtest()
# Switch to French and test a command that issues a warning
if (setLanguage("fr_FR")) imsgboxtest()
# Switch to German and test a command that issues a warning
if (setLanguage("de_DE")) imsgboxtest()
# Restore previous language
setLanguage(oldlang)
}
--
..............................................<?}))><........
) ) ) ) )
( ( ( ( ( Prof. Philippe Grosjean
) ) ) ) )
( ( ( ( ( Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems
) ) ) ) ) Mons-Hainaut University, Belgium
( ( ( ( (
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