Develop Reference

gender-dependent locale String resources Android

I'm implementing an app in Hebrew, and I like it to be user-friendly in such way that at the first time the user logs on, there will be a question "Are you a male or a female?". After answering this question, I want most of the strings to be gender-dependent
(E.g. in Hebrew the question "Would you like some coffee?" will be
תרצה לשתות קפה?
for a male, and -
תרצי לשתות קפה?
for a female)
Meanwhile my app supports English and Unisex-Hebrew Locales, so I'm using String resources (like R.string.somevalue) and I know how to handle values-he and values-en.
Let's say I can ask for is_male() and is_locale_hebrew() at anytime, I saw this answer but it won't help my case since there are a hell lot of strings in my working-already app and I want the solution to add only xml files (hopefully) with the less needed change in my "Activity"s code.
I thought maybe overloading the parser that looks for the xml files will do the magic, but I have no clue where to start from.
My question divides into two parts:
A. How can I implement gender-dependnt String-resources?
B. (Opt) Some of the string-resources are good as unisex right now, is there any option to avoid copying those resources to the 2 new gender-dependent files and just add a default behavior of "if you don't find a string resource at values-he-male search for it in values-he"?
Thanks in advance!
Re'em

Same question for me. I plan to have (in addition to the default string.xml in English) iw (for male) and iw_fe (for female).
When the user selects his/her gender, I will change the locale (Set Locale programmatically )
As for using default values in Hebrew, I am still clueless. For now I will simply copy the Hebrew XML and change the required entries, leaving all the rest intact.
HTH
Noam

localizing application non default strings?

Hi I am trying to localize my android application and I read up on how by reading this tutorial http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/localization.html but after looking through it, I couldn't figure out how to change the language. I have the default values in res/values/strings.xml and I have my other strings in res/values-latin/strings.xml. but I cant figure out how to make my application use the strings in res/values-latin/strings.xml instead of the default. Could someone explain this to me?
How about if someone clicks a change language button how could I inform the application to change all the strings?
Thank you!

Android will do it for you automatically.
When a user runs your application:
The Android system selects which resources to load, based on the
device's locale.
Example:
Suppose that your application's default language is English. Suppose also that you want to localize all the text in your application to French. In this case, you could create two alternative strings.xml files, each stored in a locale-specific resource directory:
res/values/strings.xml
Contains English text for all the strings that the application uses.
res/values-fr/strings.xml
Contain French text for all the strings.
If your Java code refers to R.string.title, here is what will happen at runtime:
If the device is set to any language other than French, Android will load English title from the res/values/strings.xml file.
If the device is set to French, Android will load French title from the res/values-fr/strings.xml file.
With latin it will not work. You should search alternative method.
My solution in java:
public final class English {
String moon = "Moon";
String earth = "Earth";
String mars = "Mars";
}
public final class Latin {
String moon = "Luna";
String earth = "Terrae";
String mars = "Mars in Latin";
}
Then in your code you can aceess them:
TextView textView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.my_text);
textView.setText( Latin.moon );

changing the language of app without changing the settings of device

I am making an android app in which i want to change the language of app on selecting a particular language in spinner without changing the language of device.I have made different string files for all language. Now what to do next??
Can anyone please help me over this?
thanks

Most simple way is just to change VM's locale, like:
Locale locale=new Locale("zh"); //Chinese
Locale.setDefault(locale); //set VM's default locale

Once I wanted to implement a multiple language feature for my application. Where that language was not even supported by android.
I made the appropriate strings for all the application and stored them in my resources.
Then I kept the language selection in my shared preferences, so that when user opens the app the next time, we can show the previously selected language. I implemented the code and language changing in my OnResume() function of Activity. the code was like:
if(SelectedLanguage.compareTo("ar")==0)
{
String text = getString(R.string.ar_Options);
tv_Options.setText(ArabicUtilities.reshape(text));
text = getString(R.string.ar_Minimize);
tv_Minimize.setText(ArabicUtilities.reshape(text));
}
else
{
String text = getString(R.string.en_Options);
tv_Options.setText(text);
text = getString(R.string.en_Minimize);
tv_Minimize.setText(text);
}
I hope you get the basic idea. In this way you don't have to change the lanuguage of your device and you can provide multiple languages for your application.

Which strings to store in strings.xml?

Are there any suggestions on which strings you should store in strings.xml and which strings can be stored as String objects? For example, do I have to put a string into strings.xml, if I use it only to complete a certain action and then it can be destroyed? And what is the main reason in storing strings in xml? Thanks in advance for your answers.

Any string that will be displayed to the user should be in strings.xml. This is useful in case you ever want to support other languages for your application. If you do, you just create a new strings.xml file that language with translated values. You can learn more about it here.

One reason is multi-language support.
You should store the strings that you use in Activities - TextView, button's caption and so on.

You should put most constants in strings.xml, your app title, button names, textview contents...mostly things that wont change in your application.
Another reason for storing strings in xml is for localization. You can store different files for each different Locale or language, and Android will grab the correct file for the phone's selected Locale or language.
Here is a link to the String resource Android page, it will go more deeply into how the language support is done.

You don't store all the strings in strings.xml, but only strings constants related to user interface, the strings that you want to translate in different languages.
You can have different folder like :
values
values-fr
values-de
in each a strings.xml file with you UI messages translated in many languages.
Regards,
Stéphane

How to set different locales in android?

In my application, I need to display strings according to user locale selection. So, I put my strings.xml in values-en, values-ko, etc. How can I set locale us, australia i.e; values-en_US, values-en_AU? But it's throwing an error? Can any one tell me how to set these locales in my code?

Use res/values-en-rUS/ (replacing the _ with -r).

I am not clear with your question but if you are not sure as what name you need to for a specified locale refer to these links
http://developer.android.com/intl/de/reference/java/util/Locale.html
http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/web/localizing-android-apps-draft
Android by default will take the resources from respective language that has been selected on the device/stimulator.

There is International Standard for Locale.....like values-en for English....values-ko for Korean...You cant modify the standard..It would work if you keep the folder name as values-ko.