Localization bug...

[usro]

Hi,
I have created a project which I have translated to German, so now I have English and German, everything was ok the first time. Now I made some modifications to the English dialogs, I have exported the translation to update the previous files, then re-imported and the English and German text appears from the previous version (before the modifications). I have removed the .MTX file then the English setup appears correctly with the modified dialogs (but no German language is available), then I re-export and import again the translation the German language is there, but again both languages appear with the old dialogs.

How can I update the German translation so that after I import the translation to get the updated dialogs ?

Thanks !

[usro]

I had to delete the translation.German and translation.English files then exported to new translation files and had to translate the German text again, this is not a solution ...it's pain in the as to translate evrything again for every little modification of the dialogs.

[MichaelNesmith]

Did you follow this procedure:

1) Export, localize, import
2) Make changes in IDE
3) Re-export to folder containing PREVIOUS EXPORT
4) Localize, import

When you follow the exact procedure above, do you lose any of the OLD or NEW translations still?

[usro]

when I do this, I loose the dialog changes. Installaware does not update even the english language translations.English file.
I will give you an example:
1. make some changes to the registration with serial dialog
2. export, localize, import
3. everything is ok
4. make some changes to the registration with serial dialog
5. export (with update) to the same folder where the previous translation files are located.
6. surprise ! you don't have the updated strings in the translation text for German (for English are there)
7. import and build setup.
8. Your registration dialog shows up like it was at step 3 without the changes you made to it (the changes are not visible even in the English language setup). In the dialog editor everything looks ok, the new changes are there, but after you build it, you get the old one displayed.

then I have deleted the translations.English and translations.German files from the project and then the setup build displayed correctly with the new changes, but the German translaton is gone because I needed to export the texts to new files or else again I don't get the changes in the dialog.

I also have verified the file dates to be sure it was not a file date problem.

[MichaelNesmith]

Is this for new controls you add to dialogs, or existing controls that you edited in the dialog editor after localization?

New controls you add to dialogs should be added properly to the translation files and should display correctly upon re-import after translation.

Old controls on dialogs should be updated in the translation system and re-imported - not edited in the dialog editor.

[usro]

new controls which after translation we modified them and exported the translation, re-imported and after that they did not work.

yes, they should work, but they did not.

[MichaelNesmith]

This is what I did, step-by-step:

1) Create new Win32 project
2) Export strings for localization
3) Localize dialogs for two languages
4) Import strings for two languages
5) Build setup, test dialogs that were localized for both languages - OK
6) Edit a dialog, add a new object and modify the text for existing object
7) Re-export into previous export folder, choose YES to preserve existing translations
8) Localize modified dialog for two languages:
a) The new object displays correctly in tool with default text, localize this new text
b) The object with modified text has correct (updated) "string meaning" and has correct (old) "string translation", leave this item alone
9) Re-import, say YES to overwrite previous import
10) Re-build setup and test dialogs show latest localizations - OK

Anything different that you tried and didn't work?

[MichaelNesmith]

PS: I also tried to change the text in step 8b above, and that worked fine as well. As far as I can see here, the dialog localization mechanism works exactly as designed.

[MichaelNesmith]

PPS: I did not manually edit any of the MTX files (or other files) created during the process. You may manually edit files, but you have to know what you are doing, and we cannot support manual updates to these files. I suspect you may have unintentionally damaged the integrity of these files, which may be the cause of your current issue.

[usro]

Hi,
I did not edited the MTX files, I have deleted them, because the translations for the German language did not get updated. I did exactly the same thing you have described and they did not get updated.
I will tell you if it will happen the same for the next setup which I have to make it soon.

[Yuri Ilyin]

Yes. We use InstallAware 5 and we have experienced the same problem.
I.e. after modification of our setup project, made by InstallAware, we have to translate all controls again.

It is very annoying

[MichaelNesmith]

Hi!

I believe this issue has been already resolved. Please try with the latest version 6.0 release.

[Benno]

Hi all,

I am using IA 6.6 (Trial) and have exactly the same problems as discribed above with localizing from English to German.

Its a real pain in the a...

Is there any solution around ????

[pmessina]

We have also experienced this problem using 5.31 and I recently downloaded a trial version of 6.6. to see if the problem was resolved. Unfortunately it does not appear to be.

As a simple test, I took an existing project and simply added an installaware scriptlet messagebox to it. I then exported all the language resources as new. I imported the English file and ran my project. The messaagebox displayed the text I expected it to.

Next I updated the text for the messagebox to display, exported but chose to update the translation files and then re-imported the English file. When I ran my project it had the old text for the messagebox.

I know that when adding resources/constructs that those strings make it over to the translation files even when choosing to update them only, what I don't understand is why changes to preexisting resources/constructs are not propagated. I would think that the developer of the installer would want that.


For instance, if I am working in English and need to make a change to the text in a messagebox, if it had been previously translated to say Japanese, I would want the export/update mechanism to re-write it out as English which would signal to the person doing the Japanese translation that this resource needs to be re-translated.

I would think that this should be simple enough to identify by comparing the current state of the English text srings to the previous version of them in the translated English file (Not sure if this could be done based on specific codepages - i.e. If someone was developing under Japanese natively they would then need to compare to the previous Japanese translation file, etc). Because all the translation files are essentially lined up positionally, you could then assume that a change at a specific point in the native language represents a change to all the other translation files as well and that it should propagate.


As it stands now, the translator would either need to do a complete re-translation each time or have two instances of mTranslator.exe running - one which had the previous translation work and another for the latest changes where they would need to cut and paste from the previous to the current. This is obviously very tedious and difficult to coordinate for the developors and translators.