I want to give my user an option to select his language and according to his selection i want to display language.
Can my android app support multiple languages. How to do that?
What you are referring to is termed Localization
You can do it under your resource folder. For example, let's say you want to have language support for France. For such cases, you can do it by creating a folder res/values-fr/strings.xml. In addition, you can have a folder called res/drawables-fr, as well.
You can check out more on these sites.
http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/localization/index.html
http://www.icanlocalize.com/site/tutorials/android-application-localization-tutorial
Related
I would like to add support to different languages in my app. As I understand, Android uses the proper strings.xml file according to the operation languages of the device. But what If I want to allow users to change the language in the settings? What steps should I do? I thought of keeping the the user's language in the his document (Firebase cloud) but then if the user if logs out the app, the main page (login/sign up) will be in the default language (and not in his language).
I guess that there is a proper "flow" that I need to follow in order to add support to multi languages. Is it possible to share this flow with me?
you can go to res- values, then from the right click list create a new Values Resource File
from the window appears name the files strings and then select locale and add your language or country.. picture below to make it clear for you
then after that you can change the locale programmatically using these methods and let android system do the rest of work
When you want to add locale-specific resources in Android, you have to add the lowercase ISO-3166-1 code of the language to the resource folder's name. So far so good.
Now I want to add Catalan and Basque strings to my application. According to the ISO list, I would have to add values-ca and values-eu. But will that work, actually?
Edit: With a custom language chooser in your app, you can provide support for languages even when they're not in the device's settings menu. I've made the library that I use for this available on GitHub:
https://github.com/delight-im/Android-Languages
I don't know if Android supports all ISO codes and if these "minor" languages will be displayed at all. If Android is not available in these languages, perhaps the device will not even recognize this language as its default locale and just use es for Spanish.
Can someone help?
Many devices ship with a limited selection of languages in the settings menu, but can actually be set to any system locale using an app such as LocaleSwitch.
It should be pretty easy to test whether Basque is supported by adding a custom locale in LocaleSwitch and then adding the resource folder to see if the system loads the resources from this folder automatically.
Finally, Gingerbread 'support' for Catalan may only reference the inclusion of android.R values since 2.3, though I can't see them in the framework repository.
Actually not all languages are documented at Android docs and many brands did your custom version of Android which may change its list, but be sure that if a device has Catalan and/or Basque suports it will use ISO standard, and the values will got rigth as it is converted with string comparision.
Maybe it would be a good choice to put a handed changer if you got that most devices do not have this support on your tests.
The thing is, if the language is not listed in the language selection list on the device, the resources can never be used as the device can never be put in this configuration by the user.
On the other hand, if the device allows you to select Basque, it will be using this format, and your resources will be used.
We can now create our "values-eu-rES" folder and have our app in Basque, Android Lollipop has made it.
We can create a folder
Basque strings ->
value-eu [Basque]
another folder
Catalan strings ->
value-ca [Catalan]
Adding a new language in LocaleSwitch, you need to type the ISO 639-1 code. For instance, if you want to switch to basque you need to enter "eu". Afterwards, you will see the new locale as "vasco".
That makes me think that basque locale is supported by android.
I have submitted an Android app to Google Play and I see that I can create different descriptions for each language it supports. My question is: can I create a different APK for each language? Alternatively, how can I detect the user's preferred language, so that I can automatically activate that language for the user in the app?
Here is the official tutorial for localizing your app. :)
You can create a different apk for each language ( split-apk ) - but I would not recommend this. Better use the platform function for this and put your strings file in the right path ( values- ) - after this everything is automagically done
no just use the /res/values/strings.xml
for example to choose english language create a folder in same directory of values and call it values-en, for frensh values-fr and so on. the default language of the app is under values/
And if (for some reason) you still need to know witch is the devices language use
Locale.getDefault().getDisplayLanguage();
I am a bit noob in Android and recently I found out that I can use the predefined string that Android provides as #android:string/cancel or #android:string/ok. At first I thought it was a good idea to use them because is a way to reuse code, but now I am not so sure about that.
What if somebody with a device configured with a language that I don't support install my app?
I assume that the app will use a default language, probably english, but those string from #android:string will get translated to the user's language, so he will end up with a mix of languages.
It this true? What do you think about use #android:string?
Thanks!
EDIT: Apparently my question hasn't been understood properly. I am NOT asking about how to support different languages. My question is about the convenience of use strings defined on #string:android, if it is correct to use them or can be lead to undesirable situation like a mix up of languages in the same application.
To ensure that your strings are appearing properly on devices configured with different languages, you'll want to create different values directories for different languages. For example, your default string values would be kept under values/strings.xml and French string values would be kept under values-fr/strings.xml.
The Android Developer website gives you plenty of information for supporting different languages in your application. http://developer.android.com/training/basics/supporting-devices/languages.html
The android: values (strings, icons, themes, etc.) will differ between devices and Android versions. If you want to use them, it's safest to copy them into your project. So for strings, you wouldn't have to worry about partial translation.
In the ressource folder of your app (res), ther is a folder "values" in it, and in this folder is the string ressource xml (strings.xml).
Usually, your app selects the strings from this file.
But you can add other value folders like this: Just create a new folder and name it "values-countryCode", for example "values-ch" for Switzerland ;)
Your app automaticly chooses the right string ressource, depending on your device's langague settings. If the langague of your device isn't available, it just takes the sting ressource of the default "values" folder.
A list if the country-codes is here.
Further information can be found here.
Hope I helped, and this is what you're looking for!
am wondering if is possible to use a feature on my app that can translate the app to other languages so the user can select through a list of languages so as he can read the app even if he doesnt speak English, thanks a lot
If you use the framework's localization facilities, this will happen automatically based on the user's language setting on their device
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/localization.html
Basically, instead of using string literals in your code (ie. txt.setText("Something") or android:text="Something"), you create these in your strings.xml file and use the automatically created reference id's.
res/values/strings.xml:
<string name="something">Something</string>
Then, you create alternate res/values folders for the other languages you support and create a similar strings.xml file there.
res/values-es/strings.xml
<string name="something">Algo</string>
Then your layouts and codes would have txt.setText(R.string.something) or android:text="#string/something".
You can do the same thing for drawable, layout, menu, etc.
"to use a feature on my app that can translate the app to other languages"
I do not think such feature exist from Google. But if you write the app according Google's localization guide then you can use our Nativer app, which is designed exactly for that. It takes you language resources - translates with a machine and then let's the crowd to correct it. All these happens in runtime - so you do not need to bother when the language translation finished by the crowd. You can find further info here transround.com
Peter