I have developed a "translate.vi", that makes it very easy to translate all
front panel strings and Run Time Menus (RTM) of your VIs in three steps:
1. Place the "translate.vi" at the beginning of the VI which strings you want
to translate (main VI) and start the main VI.
2. In the directory of your main VI a translation file "strings.txt" was
created, that contains a column of front panel strings of your main VI.
Add a new column for each new language to the translation file.
(e.g. with EXCEL).
3. Select the language index of the translation VI according to the desired
language and start the main VI again. That's it!
This works also at run-time and even after modifications
of your VI!
The reason why I have developed this VI is that the Export VI Strings and
Import VI Strings method of LabVIEW has many disadvantages:
- If you modify the VI, importing a previously exported and translated text file
results in errors.
- The exported text file has a structure close to XML. If you want to give it a
translator, you would need a parser that would allow you to extract only
the translatable strings.
- It is not possible to change the strings at runtime, because the you can
not import the textfile if the VI is running.
- Each VI of your application has its own textfile. If same strings appear in
many VIs (like "cancel" of a cancel button), you have to translate them in
each textfile.
- Run Time Menu (RTM) items are not included in the exported textfile.
I will send a tutorial (PDF file, 2 pages), documentation (PDF file, 3 pages)
and a demo to everybody who is interested.
Please send me a short email.
Robert Nell
