iOS Localizable.strings file for XIB files?

Question

I'm translating an iOS project into Portuguese and I've created a pt.lproj/Localizable.strings file, and I've added NSLocalizedString() into the source code. It all works! With one slight problem - the strings within XIB files don't get translated... I know this is by design though.

I've seen that the ibtool command can be used to rip strings from an XIB file called x and put it into a file called x.strings... but my question is, is there a way to pull the strings from ALL the xib files and put them all into one .strings file (e.g. Localizable.strings? or even another one called XIBs.strings would be fine?)

Answer 1

You have two options how to translate xib files. One is you connect the UI elements to outlets and set your strings in your viewDidLoad method using the NSLocalizedString macros.

The second option is to provide a separate xib for each language your app supports. You don't have to create them manually, you can use the ibtool command (i assume your source language is English and target is Portugese):

ibtool --strings-file pt.lproj/Example.strings en.lproj/Example.xib –write pt.lproj/Example.xib

To collect strings found in your project you can use genstrings command - however i recommend using this python script to collect all your strings - it can nicely handle the situation when you need to add/remove strings to your app without having to translate and/or manually merge all previous strings

Edit

Oh and i found the article that i learned this trick from

Answer 2

I made a category to do this:

@implementation UIView (Localise)

- (void)localise
{
    [self.subviews enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(UIView *view, NSUInteger idx, BOOL *stop) {
        [view localise];
        if ([view isKindOfClass:[UILabel class]]) {
            UILabel *label = (UILabel *)view;
            [label setText:NSLocalizedString(label.text, nil)];
        }
    }];
}

Then in your views:

- (void)awakeFromNib
{
    [super awakeFromNib];
    [self localise];
}

You'll need to add support for other UI elements (textField.placeholder = NSLocal...blah blah), but that'll do the trick for UILabel and children.

Probably not great performance-wise but does the job.

Answer 3

It's going to depend on the app and the number of localizations, but in general I prefer separate .xib files, because layout may change. Put the localized files in pt.lproj/.