Any Experience Developing Localized/Multilingal PowerBuilder Apps?

[Former Member]

I have a requirement to develop an application using PB 12.5 Classic that will be translated to Vietnamese.  I have been looking into various means of accomplishing this task, but so far the options are either expensive or maintenance intensive.  Has anyone out there had to create an app like this?  If so, can you provide the technique used to do so?

Thank you.

[former_member190719]

Since version 6, PowerBuilder has come with a utility in the TransTlk directory called the Translation Toolkit.  Here's a PPT slide show that talks about how to use it.

There is a third party tool called Enable that can be used to do this.

You might also look at using localization runtime DLLs directly:

[Former Member]

Hi Bruce.

Thank you for your response.  I can use all the help I can get with this issue.

The Translation Toolkit is the first option that I looked into.  I think it would be doable, but it's not very maintenance friendly in that, if understand it correctly, we would still need to keep a separate copy of the application for each language.  With my minimal staff, this would be difficult to support.

I have looked into the Enable product, and while it's very appealing from a maintenance standpoint in that it requires only one code base, it's a tad costly so my management is asking me to look for alternatives,  I also contacted Assima about their Multilingual Suite.  As it turns out they are even more costly, so I'm back to the drawing board with the clock ticking.

As for the DLLs, while it sounds like a more maintenance friendly method, I'm not sure that I have the expertise to employ it.  For starters, I'm not familiar with the steps necessary to create the resource DLLs, and it appears that the referenced Languages PBL is no longer available on the SYS-CON site.

If money were no object, I think that I would be inclined to take Novalys up on their offer to sell their product to me, given the short time frame that I have to make this happen.  As it stands, I need to do my best to find the best answer I can and I thank you for your input to that end.

Regards,

Craig

[Former Member]

Hi Craig;

  You are most welcome to try my STD Foundation Classes framework for PB & Appeon for this task. The framework is free and the example application already demonstrates an application that can switch between Spanish, French and English. I know that the framework has been used to build German, Italian, Portuguese, etc applications - so I would think that it should handle Vietnamese and others as well.

  You can download the framework and sample application from SourceForge (STD Foundation Classes | SourceForge.net). Please let me know if I can help you further if you decide to go in this direction.

HTH

Regards ... Chris

[Former Member]

Hi Chris.

Thank you for your reply to my question.  While I doubt that I would have the time to incorporate our existing application into a new framework, I am curious about how you put this together.

As such, would you please confirm if I should be downloading the "=> Updated version of the STD "Integrated" framework (Version #5.4.0.21 - Service Pack#4) was released to production (GA) on December 19, 2014." from your webpage?

Thank you again.

Craig

[Former Member]

Hi Craig;

  Suggestion: Just download the example OrderEntry application that is built from the Integrated framework and watch it run & look into its coding practices as a start.

  FYI: The new OrderEntry application uses both my "Integrated" framework and my "Web Service "frameworks in tandum in this latest release. However, the Integrated (ie client side) framework is where you would get the implementation ideas for your application

Note: The Web Service framework is also multilingual.  

=> STD Foundation Classes - Browse /Example Applications/PowerBuilder/OrderEntry at SourceForge.net

HTH

Regards ... Chris

[Former Member]

Hi Chris,

Please forgive my apparent lack of comprehension here, but I downloaded the "OrderEntry_Integrated_v5.4.0.21_SP04_PB_Classic_12.1.0_B6518_2014-12-28-1.zip" from your site. 

Is that the correct one?  I'm confused because it seems to have both client and web service frameworks.

Thank you again.

Craig

[Former Member]

Hi Craig;

1)  Yes, that is the latest version

2)  Yes, both frameworks are now used in this latest version of the OrderEntry application

Note1: The WS framework only comes into play when deploying to Appeon Web or Appeon Mobile.

Note2:  If you are running the OrderEntry application from the PB Classic IDE or via an EXE compile (aka native Win32) - then it only uses the Integrated framework.

HTH

Regards ... Chris