Creating applications that can be used successfully by people from more than one culture involves a large number of design and implementation considerations. When the application is designed, the variety of cultures and end-users need to be taken into account and the application built to either take into account these areas of difference or avoid them. This process may be more or less difficult, depending on how varied the different cultures are.
This document will help ESL developers to deliver successful applications to users who speak different languages and are from different cultures.
The following table lists some major aspects of internationalization to be considered. ESL provides a number of features to help facilitate this process.
Design Aspect |
Internationalization Issue |
Number Formats |
Different cultures have different conventions for formatting numbers: decimal separators, negative signs, currency symbols, and so forth. See Number Formats. |
Date and Time Formats |
Various date and time formats may be used. |
String Manipulation |
String manipulation, such as which characters are considered to be letters, how strings are sorted, or inserting data values into user messages can be affected by the language the user speaks. |
External Strings and Text Translation |
All text shown to the user needs to be translated into the user's language. There are situations in which a single program may need to change the language it is displaying at runtime. |
Character Sets |
Different languages may need to use different character sets to represent them. |
Window Layout |
The layout of windows that contain text either need to be large enough for when the text is translated or must dynamically size themselves to the size of the text. ESL allows the size and position to be dynamically changed, but cannot do it automatically. The program can use the change position and change size action statements. |
Window Flow |
When an application is used with languages that are read in different directions (left to right, right to left, top to bottom), the overall layout of windows and the order in which the user navigates through the windows may need to change. This kind of change can require a more substantial change to the user interface parts of a program, although other parts may not need to be changed. |
Colors |
The interpretation of color varies across cultures. If a color is used to signify a particular meaning, be sure either that it has that significance in each place the program will be used, or that the color can be configured for different versions. |
Images |
The interpretation of images and even the acceptability of images can vary a great deal. Images that depict items are common to the program developers may not be recognizable in other places. |
Other Issues |
There are numerous other issues that need to be considered when internationalizing a program; for example: telephone number format, postal address format, the day that starts the week, layout for calendars, and units of measurement. |
