j18n Tutorial

Foreign IDE

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Navigation: Master IDE (dropdown: locales), To-do IDE (link: name), et al

This is where localization takes place; define foreign content for a resource. Only the foreign content may be modified—keys, master content, and notes are all read-only.
Each item is classified into one of four possible states: up-to-date, intentionally missing, missing, or out-of-date. The latter two are considered incomplete, as they need work.

Grids

Items are separated into one of four possible grids. In all grids, you can modify the foreign content, view history, revert changes, or change the state of a row. All changes are temporary until saving the oreign resource.

- Edit Foreign Content

Editing of content follows a similar pattern: first you select a cell (by Tab-bing to it or clicking it); then you invoke the inline editor (by clicking again or hitting ↵Enter/Return)
You then type in your content. You can either Cancel or Close (which writes the new content to the cell). Of course you do not need to worry about Unicode escapes— you just type as you would for any normal document.
Foreign content is restricted to 15 000 characters; excess text will be automatically truncated.

- Changing state

You can also change the state of a message (by checking the appropriate checkbox); if you do this, then any change you have made to the message's foreign content will be ignored. Which state changes are allowed, depends upon which state a message is in (and will be fully explained below).

Up-to-date

Up-to-date items indicate that any changes to foreign content have been made after the latest change to the master content. Of course you can still modify foreign content; you can also mark an item as either missing or intentionally missing.

Missing

Missing items indicate that there is no translation yet. Missing items will not show up in a build and are incomplete. You can view the history of the master content. If you enter foreign content and then save the resource, the item will transition to up-to-date. You may also mark an item as intentionally missing; it still won't appear in a build, but will not be considered incomplete.

Intentionally Missing

Intentionally missing items indicate that there is intentionally no translation provided. Intentionally missing items do not show up in a build but are not incomplete. Generally this is done when there is no localization, e.g. the foreign content is intrinsically the same as the master content (as in international terms, etc).
You can view the history of the master content. If you enter foreign content and then save the resource, the item will transition to up-to-date. You may also mark an item as missing; it still won't appear in a build, but will now be considered incomplete.

Out-of-date

Out-of-date items indicate that the master content has changed since the last foreign content was provided. Out-of-date messages do show up in a build and are incomplete. By viewing history, you can see the version of the master content that was the basis for the last foreign content and exactly how the master has changed. If you enter foreign content and then save the resource, the item will transition to up-to-date. You may also mark the message as either missing or intentionally missing. In addition, you may mark a message as up-to-date, which simply means that the latest foreign content does not need to change to accommodate the latest master version. Note: marking an out-of-date message as up-to-date means that any change you have made to the message's foreign content will be ignored. So if you're just updating a message's foreign content do not also mark the message as up-to-date.

- Revert

You can revert any changes you made to a message's foreign content by clicking on the revert icon. Reverting only applies to foreign content; if you want to revert a state change, just uncheck the checkbox. The presence of the revert icon, indicates that a message's foreign content has changed.

- View History

In order to view previous versions for a message, click on the first (leftmost) cell in the grid. The history panel shows previous versions of the message resulting from either a change to the master or foreign content.
The history panel shows who made the master edit, the master content (you can mouseover the master content to see when the edit was changed), the foreign content, and who and when the foreign content edit was made. Think of each row as a snapshot, revealing the state of the master and foreign content after one of them was changed. If a foreign message was marked as missing, its content will be shown as empty.

- Hiding Notes

You can hide (or show) the notes column; click on either the content or notes header cell or click on the thick right edge of the grid.

Contains reset, and save buttons. The save button is enabled once you have unsaved changes. You must save a resource before any of your changes become permanent. Home will jump to the toolbar.

Supers

All foreign resources in the foreign resource's inheritance graph are displayed in order with their contents and the corresponding master cotent. Each message's state (up-to-date, out-of-date, missing, intentionally missing) is visible in its first cell. You can also hide/show the notes column as in the main grid. All keys, content, and notes are read-only in a super-resource grid.

Preview Source

You can view the output that would be generated for a build by preview source.
The output is a java .properties file that is suitable for copying to your local SCC working copy. The output is of the latest saved data—it does not include any unsaved changes in your grid.

The IDE is designed so that you can do most of your work using only the keyboard. Moving backwards/forwards between cells (including between grids), invoking the editor, etc. does not require using the mouse.

Tab	Go forward a cell
Shift+Tab	Go back a cell
Home	Jump to toolbar
Ctrl +	Zoom In
Ctrl -	Zoom Out
Ctrl+F	Search
Esc	Cancel (Editor)
Enter (Return)	Open Editor