Language Files

The software PicToBrick is available in different languages by means of language files. The used language is defined on the basis of the installed system language in the operating system. Up to now, the following languages are available:

English (default): TextResource_en.properties
German: TextResource_de.properties
Danish: TextResource_da.properties
Dutch: TextResource_nl.properties
Italian: TextResource_it.properties
French: TextResource_fr.properties
Spanish: TextResource_es.properties
(empty sample: TextResource_empty.properties)

Everyone is free to improve these files or establish new language files for further languages. One language file provides approx. 500 lines in the form key=value. In general, the value allegorises a short text (button designation, menu items etc) which is read and used with the help of the software key.

We are looking forward to receiving any further language into which our software is translated and would like to publish such files together with the new software release. As reference material the existing language files and an empty sample can be downloaded.

Short Description

In principle, a translation of the English language file is created.
Provided comments within the language file assist in navigation, explain points which demand more information and should in each case be be kept in English.
Punctuation (if provided) should be taken over in accordance with the English language file.
Language files are saved in the form TextResource_XX.properties. XX presents in this case the language code acc. to ISO 639-1 (Wikipedia article ISO 639-1).

Language files must obligatorily be saved with figure encoding acc. to ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1). This figure code is at least sufficient for the following languages:

African
Albanian
Basque
Danish
German
English
Faroese
Finnish
French
Irish (new ortography)
Icelandic

Italian
Catalan
Dutch
Norwegian
Portuguese (including Brasilian)
Rhaeto-romanic
Scottish
Swedish
Spanish
Suaheli
Walloon

Further information about ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) gives a respective Wikipedia article: Latin 1 and from a Latin-1-graphics of W3C.
A free text editor independent from a special platform (i.e. for Windows, Mac and Linux), which can also save text files as ISO 8859-1, is JEdit (Download: www.jedit.org). After installation and start of JEdit, figure encoding can be adjusted as follows:
1. menu bar: utilities
2. menu item: global options
3. point: general
4. setting: default character encoding - ISO 8859-1
5. button: apply - ok
Please contact us by email (contact) prior to establishing a language file, to avoid in advance any overlapping. Please feel free to contact us if you have further questions.