[R-gui] tcltk internationalization for built-in buttons

John Fox jfox at mcmaster.ca
Tue Nov 11 16:47:28 CET 2008 

Dear Ulrike,

Using gettext within R is really quite simple. You're probably aware of this, but just in case, you can consult Brian Ripley's article in the May 2005 R News, the section on internationalization and localization in the R Installation and Administration manual, and the document at <http://developer.r-project.org/Translations.html>. 

Under Windows, you can check that that your translation is working by, e.g., setting the language in the target field of a shortcut to Rgui. For example, I typically check in Spanish with the target field set to C:\R\R-2.8.0\bin\Rgui.exe language=es. 

I hope this helps,
John

------------------------------
John Fox, Professor
Department of Sociology
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
web: socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox


> -----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
> > ..............................................<°}))><........
> >   ) ) ) ) )
> > ( ( ( ( (    Prof. Philippe Grosjean
> >   ) ) ) ) )
> > ( ( ( ( (    Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems
> >   ) ) ) ) )   Mons-Hainaut University, Belgium
> > ( ( ( ( (
> > ..............................................................
> >
> > 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 wählen, gehen alle noch nicht gespeicherten Eingaben
> >> verloren."
> >> #    ::msgcat::mcset de "Really Exit WITHOUT Save ?" "Wirklich OHNE
> >> Speichern Beenden ?"
> >> #    ::msgcat::mcset de "Yes pressed" "Ja gedrückt"
> >> #    ::msgcat::mcset de "No pressed" "Nein gedrückt"
> >> #}
> >>
> >> 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
> > ( ( ( ( (
> > ..............................................................
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > R-SIG-GUI mailing list
> > R-SIG-GUI at stat.math.ethz.ch
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-gui
> >
> >
> 
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> internationalization-for-built-in-buttons-tp1484614p1485165.html
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> 
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