Among the trickier things in software development is getting your application translated into different languages. Beyond making sure you provide enough white space in your UI for longer strings of translated text, simply getting your app localized can be an awful lot of effort, and it often causes your product to be delayed while the translators do their work.
The traditional Windows approach is to store displayed text in a separate resource DLL that's linked to your application at runtime. Instead of taking this approach with FeedDemon, though, I chose to store language strings in an external XML file (an "FDLANG") which is parsed at startup. This way, third parties can create translations using any editor they like, and no extra compilation is required.
FeedDemon is designed to recognize hyperlinks to FDLANG files, so installing a new language file is incredibly simple – just click the FDLANG hyperlink, and FeedDemon will download the language file and ask whether you want to use it right away.
If you'd like to try this yourself, stop by the FeedDemon Language Files Page to download and install additional languages.
All of these language files were created by individuals who simply wanted to see FeedDemon support their native language. It's a tedious process translating so much text, and we owe these folks a great deal of thanks for spending their time doing this.
PS: If you're thinking about creating your own translation, be sure to modify the constant value named S_TranslatorCredit in the FDLANG file. This value appears at the top of FeedDemon's "About" box so you can get some credit for your work.
PPS: If you change languages and want to switch back to English, look for the "Language" submenu:
