Translating Resource Files
So we just released You Doodle on the iOS app store a few weeks ago and it’s doing fairly well. There are a lot of features I want to add, but one of the most important is to get the app localized into as many languages as possible. I got quotes from a few online companies for just the English to Spanish translation and the cost for just that averaged about 150 USD. That is too much for a very small software startup to pay for localization, especially if you multiply it by 5 or 6 for the top languages in the world.
My solution? We are going to be building a web app at translate.digitalruby.com that will allow you to upload iOS resource files, Visual Studio resx files and Android resource files. To start we are going to do iOS resource files first since that is our most pressing need. The translator will work by letting you upload your files. You can then use a free Bing API key to translate your file and then you can download the translated copy in whatever languages you specified.
I’m actually surprised such a tool does not already exist. At least I haven’t been able to find one after several hours of searching on Bing and Google…
Jeff Johnson (
Erm, that’s a terrible idea, especially since UI elements in resource files are usually very short captions — all the more likely to fail in automated translation, due to lack of surrounding context. For instance, “order number” in your business app could easily be translated to some rubbish that literally means “demand a digit”.
True, but as a starting point for someone to go in later and do the real localization it’s probably better than nothing.