This pile provides support for an application that wants to deal with multiple languages and chooses to use Qt5 internally and for translation management.
The application is expected to create a directory to hold
language-dependent files (say internationalization)
that contains one folder for each language and the
CMakeLists.txt file calls internationalizationDirectory() macro.
The macro will search for .ts files and run them through Qt system
and will install generated .qm files in share/locales/${project}
along with the other components.
Each language directory needs to have at least one
file called metadata.ini.
[General]
label=English
icon=icon.png
translate=strings-en
locale=en_GB
additional=a.txt;b.txt;c.txt;d.txt
The format is supported by Qt's QSettings and is also parsed by CMake script in order to extract meaningful values. For this reason the format has a few limitations:
- no white spaces should appear on either side of equal (=) sign
- semicolon (;) character may cause problems
Other keys may appear in this file but only these are meaningful for this pile.
label is the text that will be presented to the user and should
be a (short) name of the language.
icon is the image to be presented in GUI applications along
with the label;
translate is both the name of the .ts file located in same
directory as the metadata.ini file as well as the name of the
compiled .qm file that will be generated and installed. The
.ts file does not need to exist but it will be created by the
script in source directory. One thing to keep in mind is that
the .qm files are generated in same directory and, thus, the name
must be unique across all language files.
additional is the list of additional files to be installed in
language directory. The list should be separated by semicolons (;).
The CMake script creates an additional target called
translate that is always builded.
Files are installed in either
${PROJECT_NAME}.app/Contents/Resources/translations/${lang} for MacOs
or in share/locale/${PROJECT_NAME_UNIX}/${lang} for the rest.
Translate class acts as a manager that is capable of locating, reading
and storing the languages. Each language is represented as a TransLang.
Code can then iterate and set current language.