Multiligual Database

Hi Bernard,

As others have said, the general idea is to put *all* the text in the
user interface (captions, labels, tooltips, text for messageboxes) into
a table, and retrieve them from the table whenever needed as you open a
form or whatever.

Often you'll need to store fragments of text that can be assembled into
the message you need. E.g.
"File " and " not found."
and
"Fichier " and " introuvable."
can both be concatenated with a filespec and displayed in a messagebox.

You'll find that in general the French version of any caption or message
is significantly longer than the English one, so you'll probably need to
modify all your forms and reports to give room for the French.

The structure of the table that stores the texts should probably be like
this:
TextID*
LocaleID*
TextValue

This seems better than a suggestion elsewhere in this thread of
something like
TextID*
EnglishText
FrenchText

because your structure and code won't need to be changed should you
decide to support further locales.

Character sets shouldn't be a problem in modern versions of Access so
long as you use a Unicode font.

You may want to investigate the KeyboardLanguage property of textboxes
and other controls: this lets you switch the keyboard layout along with
the language - or you may feel it's wiser not to interfere with the
user's regional settings.

Also, take a look at http://www.i18nwithvb.com/

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 19:32:02 -0800, "Bernard Piette"
wrote:

HI,

I've designed a very complex database (60 tables x 550 fields x about 150
relationships) and have come up against a huge obstacle. The database is
curently designed completely in English but my customer is in Quebec and so
it needs to be bilingual. How in the world can I convert everything structure
and data to be in both languages. Super Simple Examples is in English we say
Mr. or Mrs. and in French we say M. or Mme. for men and women.
This is essential to follow Quebec language laws and something tells me this
will be a gargantuan task :-\

Any help or pointers to scripts or anything will be much apreciated.

ps: I posted here and muti user as I was not certain the more apropriate
group.
--
Bernard Piette

--
John Nurick [Microsoft Access MVP]

Please respond in the newgroup and not by email.

John Nurick,

That's exactly waht I was looking for" said the blind man " :-)

Thanks so much for tking the time to clarify, your work is apreciated.

Bernard Piette



"John Nurick" wrote:

Hi Bernard,

As others have said, the general idea is to put *all* the text in the
user interface (captions, labels, tooltips, text for messageboxes) into
a table, and retrieve them from the table whenever needed as you open a
form or whatever.

Often you'll need to store fragments of text that can be assembled into
the message you need. E.g.
"File " and " not found."
and
"Fichier " and " introuvable."
can both be concatenated with a filespec and displayed in a messagebox.

You'll find that in general the French version of any caption or message
is significantly longer than the English one, so you'll probably need to
modify all your forms and reports to give room for the French.

The structure of the table that stores the texts should probably be like
this:
TextID*
LocaleID*
TextValue

This seems better than a suggestion elsewhere in this thread of
something like
TextID*
EnglishText
FrenchText

because your structure and code won't need to be changed should you
decide to support further locales.

Character sets shouldn't be a problem in modern versions of Access so
long as you use a Unicode font.

You may want to investigate the KeyboardLanguage property of textboxes
and other controls: this lets you switch the keyboard layout along with
the language - or you may feel it's wiser not to interfere with the
user's regional settings.

Also, take a look at http://www.i18nwithvb.com/

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 19:32:02 -0800, "Bernard Piette"
wrote:

HI,

I've designed a very complex database (60 tables x 550 fields x about 150
relationships) and have come up against a huge obstacle. The database is
curently designed completely in English but my customer is in Quebec and so
it needs to be bilingual. How in the world can I convert everything structure
and data to be in both languages. Super Simple Examples is in English we say
Mr. or Mrs. and in French we say M. or Mme. for men and women.
This is essential to follow Quebec language laws and something tells me this
will be a gargantuan task :-\

Any help or pointers to scripts or anything will be much apreciated.

ps: I posted here and muti user as I was not certain the more apropriate
group.
--
Bernard Piette

--
John Nurick [Microsoft Access MVP]

Please respond in the newgroup and not by email.