Strategy for Bilingual Flash site

[mowgliF]

Hi - I am working on a bilingual site for a client ( a wine producer in France...). It will be in English and French. Obviously, there will be several updates before the site goes live and probably quite a few as well after the site has gone live. I would like to avoid duplicating workload or having 2 versions (i.e 2swf's). In your experience, what is the best way to approach the challenge from a coding strategy viewpoint ?
Thanks

[Assertnfailure]

If you already know you aren't going to use two seperate swfs, then that pretty much only gives you one option (that I could think of), which is to pull xml from the server which provides all of the text for the swf, and you just pair the nodes to the different text fields.

[Flash Gordon]

That solution is obviously much more elegant, but if you wanted you could also have 2 of the same scene and just attach which ever language you wanted.
eg

function languageFactory(type:String):SceneFactory
{
   var fac:Function;
   switch(type)
   {
      case "en": fac = enFactory; break;
      case "fr": fac = frFactory(); break;
    }
    return fac;
}

function enFactory(scene:int):void
{
   var scene:DisplayObject;
   switch(scene)
   {
      case 0: scene = new HomeEn(); break;
      case 1: scene = new ContactEn(); break;
    }
    return scene;
}
//

var fac:Function = languageFactory("en");
addChild( fac(0) );

something along those lines....Where HomeEn and HomeFr could share the same super class or base class.

But anyway, do you know what are the different glyphs that are needed between EN and FR when embedding a font? Is there a master list somewhere?

[mowgliF]

FG - Thanks for this very elegant solution. I have already started the project though and decided to allow users to change the language mid-visit. So I went for a solution with a language var which is always checked before xml or html text is loaded. For the navigation, I use a simple function which reloads the navigation buttons whenever the language buttons are clicked on.
This is an OK solution which is not making the code so much heavier.
Thanks again

[gd2000]

yup, xml and switch statements are good for this kind of thing

but note the difference in text size for those with restricted space... buttons etc.

[Flash Gordon]

Originally Posted by Flash Gordon

But anyway, do you know what are the different glyphs that are needed between EN and FR when embedding a font? Is there a master list somewhere?

-

[asf8]

Originally Posted by Flash Gordon

But anyway, do you know what are the different glyphs that are needed between EN and FR when embedding a font? Is there a master list somewhere?

http://www.5etdemi.com/blog/archives...hars-in-flash/

<glyphRange name="French Characters " id="26" >
    <range min="0x0020" max ="0x0020" />
    <range min="0x00C0" max ="0x00C0" />
    <range min="0x00C2" max ="0x00C2" />
    <range min="0x00C4" max ="0x00C4" />
    <range min="0x00C6" max ="0x00CB" />
    <range min="0x00CE" max ="0x00CF" />
    <range min="0x00D4" max ="0x00D4" />
    <range min="0x00D6" max ="0x00D6" />
    <range min="0x00D9" max ="0x00D9" />
    <range min="0x00DB" max ="0x00DC" />
    <range min="0x00E0" max ="0x00E0" />
    <range min="0x00E2" max ="0x00E2" />
    <range min="0x00E4" max ="0x00E4" />
    <range min="0x00E6" max ="0x00EB" />
    <range min="0x00EE" max ="0x00EF" />
    <range min="0x00F4" max ="0x00F4" />
    <range min="0x00F6" max ="0x00F6" />
    <range min="0x00F9" max ="0x00F9" />
    <range min="0x00FB" max ="0x00FC" />
    <range min="0x0152" max ="0x0153" />
</glyphRange>

or maybe try to "Include these characters" when you embed.

àâäùæçéèêëîï?ôöœùûüÜÛÙŒÔÏÎËÊÈÉßÇÆÄÂÀ

I am not French so maybe there are more ?

[Flash Gordon]

Cool, but how does that relate the embedded button?


Which one of those do I have to use for what font? Like what glyphs do I need from French? How about Spanish? etc It would be great if there was a master list somewhere.

Thanks for your help

EDIT: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/...=00000894.html
on the right track now...cool But I'll be back with more questions shortly.

[Flash Gordon]

This is what I've been looking for:
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/i...age/index.html

[asf8]

Originally Posted by Flash Gordon

It would be great if there was a master list somewhere. Thanks for your help. EDIT: on the right track now...cool

Glad to help. I am trying to figure out this whole topic also ;-)

Originally Posted by Flash Gordon

This is what I've been looking for:
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/i...age/index.html

Nice link Here are some more:

http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/ (under characters)
http://www.eki.ee/letter/
http://unicode.org/charts/

Also here is a COOL function for creating the XML needed for adding to the UnicodeTable.xml

Custom character-set embedding in Flash
http://www.psyked.co.uk/adobe/flash/...g-in-flash.htm

var myString:String = " abcdABCD";
var nameOfFontSet:String = "abcdABCD Character Set"
var fontSetID:Number = 50
generateCharSet(nameOfFontSet, fontSetID, myString);
function generateCharSet(setName, setID, chars) {
    var outputXML:String = "<glyphRange name=\""+setName+"\" id=\""+setID+"\">\n";
    var numberOfChars:Number = chars.length;
    for (var i:Number = 0; i<=numberOfChars-1; i++) {
        var charCode:Number = chars.charCodeAt(i);
        var hexCode:String = convertTo4DigitHexValue(charCode.toString(16));
        outputXML += "\t<range min=\"0x"+hexCode+"\" max=\"0x"+hexCode+"\" />\n";
    }
    outputXML += "</glyphRange>";
    trace("outputXML:\n"+outputXML);
    XML_Output_txt.text = outputXML;
}
function convertTo4DigitHexValue(hexValue:String):String {
    var hexLength:Number = hexValue.length;
    var numberOfLeadingZerosRequired:Number = 4-hexLength;
    for (var i:Number = 0; i<=numberOfLeadingZerosRequired-1; i++) {
        hexValue = "0"+hexValue;
    }
    return hexValue;
}

Outputs:

<glyphRange name="abcdABCD Character Set" id="50">
	<range min="0x0020" max="0x0020" />
	<range min="0x0061" max="0x0061" />
	<range min="0x0062" max="0x0062" />
	<range min="0x0063" max="0x0063" />
	<range min="0x0064" max="0x0064" />
	<range min="0x0041" max="0x0041" />
	<range min="0x0042" max="0x0042" />
	<range min="0x0043" max="0x0043" />
	<range min="0x0044" max="0x0044" />
</glyphRange>

Keep us posted with anything you discover or come up with regarding this subject!!