xref: /freebsd/contrib/ee/ee.i18n.guide (revision 2008043f386721d58158e37e0d7e50df8095942d)
1Easy Editor ("ee") provides the ability to translate the messages
2displayed to the user and the commands entered.  This is done via message
3catalogs, following X/Open standards.  ee supports eight bit characters,
4as well as 16-bit characters.  The Chinese Big 5 code set is the 16-bit
5code set that ee was modified to handle, as it is relatively easy to
6support since two byte characters also take up two columns on the screen,
7thereby simplifying the screen position calculations.  Other multibyte
8code sets may function, but have not been tested.
9
10(The name ee.i18n.guide is for "ee internationalization guide".  The i18n
11abbreviation is used because there are 18 characters between the first
12letter ("i") and last ("n") of "internationalization".)
13
14All of the messages, warnings, information, and commands, are contained
15in the message catalog.  Each numbered entry represents an individual
16string used by ee.  Some strings contain formatting information for
17formatted print statements, which are of the form "%s", or "%d", these
18must be preserved in the translation, or the correct information will not
19be displayed.  For those strings containing multiple formatting codes,
20the order of each item must be preserved as well.
21
22Message		content
231 		title for modes, or settings menu
242 - 8		entries for modes menu, each line should be the same length
25		 (padded with spaces)
269 - 34		other menu titles and entries
2735 - 56 	help screen
2857 - 61 	actions assigned to control keys
2962 - 66 	commands information
3067 		message displayed when info window turned off
3168 		indication that no file name was entered when invoking ee
3269		prompt for decimal value of character to be entered
3370		message displaying the print command being invoked
3471 		prompt for command
3572		prompt for name of file to be written
3673		prompt for name of file to be read
3774		string used to display the decimal value of the character
38		 the cursor is on
3975		string displaying an unrecognized command
4076 		string indicating that the command entered is not a unique
41		 substring of a valid command
4277		string indicating the current line number
4378		string for displaying the length of the line
4479		string for displaying the name of the file
4580 - 83		strings showing how to invoke ee, and its options
4684		message indicating that the file entered is a directory, not a
47		 text file
4885		message informing that the entered file does not yet exist
4986		message informing that the file can't be opened (because of
50		 permission problems)
5187		message after file has been read with the file name and number
52		 of lines read
5388		message indicating that the file has been read
5489		message indicating that the file is being read
5590		message indicating that permissions only allow the file to be
56		 read, not written
5791		message after file has been read with the file name and number
58		 of lines read
5992		prompt for name of file to be saved (used when no name was
60		 entered for a file to edit)
6193		message indicating that the file was not written, since no
62		 name was entered at the prompt
6394		prompt asking user if changes should not be saved ("yes_char"
64		 will be expected for affirmative response)
6595		"yes" character, single character expected to confirm action
66		 (can be upper or lower case, will be converted to upper-case
67		 during test)
6896		prompt
6997		error message
7098		message indicating that the named file is being written
7199		message indicating the name of the file written, the number of
72		 lines, and the number of characters (order of items must be
73		 maintained)
74100		search in progress message
75101		message that the string was not found
76102		prompt for search
77103		message that string could not be executed
78104		self-explanatory
79105		message for menus, indicating that the Escape character will
80		 allow the user to exit the menu
81106		error message indicating the menu won't fit on the screen
82107		self-explanatory
83108		prompt for shell command
84109		message displayed while formatting a paragraph
85110		string which places message for spell checking at top of
86		 buffer (the portions 'list of unrecognized words' and
87		 '-=-=-=-=-=-' may be replaced, but the rest must remain the
88		 same)
89111		message informing that spell checking is in progress
90112		prompt for right margin
91113		error informing user that operation is not permitted in ree
92114		string indicating mode is turned 'on' in modes menu
93115		string indicating mode is turned 'off' in modes menu
94116 - 131	strings used for commands (some also used for initialization)
95132 - 144	strings used for initialization
96145		entry for settings menu for emacs key bindings settings
97146 - 153	help screen entries for emacs key bindings info
98154 - 158	info window entries for emacs key bindings info
99159		string for turning on emacs key bindings in the init file
100160		string for turning off emacs key bindings in the init file
101161		fifth line of usage statement
102162		error message when unable to save configuration file
103163		positive feedback about saving the configuration file
104164 - 167	menu items for saving editor configuration
105168		error message when unable to save configuration file
106169		error message for ree when not specifying the file
107180		self-explanatory
108181 - 182	indicators of more information in menu (for when scrolling
109		 menus because menu contents won't fit vertically on screen)
110183		menu entry for modes menu for 16 bit characters
111184 - 185	strings for initialization to turn on or off 16 bit
112		character handling
113
114Care should be taken when translating commands and initialization keywords
115because the algorithm used for detecting uniqueness of entered commands
116will not be able to distinguish words that are not unique before the end
117of the shorter word, for example, it would not be able to distinguish the
118command 'abcd' from 'abcde'.
119
120After translating the messages, use the 'gencat' command to create the compiled
121catalog used when running the software.  The standard syntax would be:
122
123	gencat ee.cat ee.msg
124
125Where ee.msg is the file containing the translations, and ee.cat is the
126compiled catalog.  If the file ee.cat does not exist, it will be created.
127Check the documentation for your system for proper syntax.
128
129Message catalog placement varies from system to system.  A common location
130for message catalogs is in /usr/lib/nls.  In this directory are
131directories with the names of other languages.  The default language is
132'C'.  There is also an environment variable, named NLSPATH used to
133determine where message catalogs can be found.  This variable is similar
134to the PATH variable used for commands, but with some differences.  The
135NLSPATH variable must have the ability to handle different names for
136languages and the catalog files, so it has field descriptors for these.  A
137typical setting for NLSPATH could be:
138
139	NLSPATH=/usr/lib/nls/%L/%N.cat:/usr/local/lib/nls/%L/%N.cat
140
141Where "%L" is the field descriptor for the language (obtained from the
142LANG environment variable) and "%N" is the name of the file (with the
143".cat" appended by the path variable, it is not passed from the requesting
144program).  The colon (:) is used to separate paths, so in the above
145example there are two paths possible for message catalogs.  You may wish
146to maintain catalogs for applications that are not supported by your
147system vendor in a location unique for you, and this is facilitated by the
148NLSPATH variable.  Remember to set and export both the LANG and NLSPATH
149variables for each user that expects to use localization either in a
150system-wide profile or in each user's profile.  See your system
151documentation for more information.
152
153The message catalog supplied with ee also uses the '$quote' directive to
154specify a quote around strings to ensure proper padding.  This directive
155may not be supported on all systems, and lead to quotes being included in
156the string used in ee, which will cause incorrect behavior.  If the
157'$quote' directive is not supported by your system's gencat command, edit
158the msg file to remove the leading and trailing quotation marks.
159