Did you know that with Transit NXT, in addition to text, tagged text, word processing, and DTP formats, you can also translate software and binary software resources?

Imported source formats

The following resource format filters are part of the Transit NXT Professional standard filter kit and can be imported and processed with Transit NXT:

• Resource files (*.rc)
• RC Binary *.exe, *.dll (C++ and .NET)*
• DLL with WPF elements

Resource editing in Transit NXT

The following image is a screen shot of a DLL file in Transit. In the centre left of the screen, you can see the bilingual pair, as usual, with the source and target windows, and the translation memory below. In the target language, you can see the GUI strings in separate segments, accompanied by their corresponding resource element information in the preceding segment (element type,  coordinates, etc.) On the right-hand side, in the so-called RC editor, you can see a dynamic preview of the GUI elements you are translating.

Furthermore, in the RC editor window, you can carry out the following tasks:

• Resize or reposition window elements with the mouse or by editing their coordinates.
• Align groups of window elements to the left, right, top or bottom.
• Centre individual elements or groups vertically.
• Resize grouped window elements of varying widths, heights or sizes to the same dimensions.
• Set equal horizontal or vertical spacing between grouped window elements.
• Reset the position and size of the selected element back to the initial state.

Other useful features for resource translation and editing as well as quality assurance for localization jobs are to be found in the File Navigation window on the left-hand side of the screen. Here you can navigate between dialogues or window elements or, in the error report tabs, between errors or error types. In the target language window, the part of a string that exceeds a given length is shown in red so you know you have to either abbreviate the text or resize the corresponding element.

The length check also forms part of the automatic check routines in Transit, so all length transgressions will be shown in the error report we mentioned earlier, as well as duplicate accelerators. Accelerators are shown as tags in Transit and can be easily reassigned by keyboard combinations. In combination with the habitual terminology lookup and translation memory functions and all the other productivity features of Transit's translation editor, the RC editor puts you in command of a comprehensive set of options that allow you to localize resource files in an extremely efficient manner. Ah,  and one more thing: Once translated, the bilingual resource files can easily be converted into TermStar dictionaries, so you can ensure the right software terminology is used during documentation translation. Thank you for stopping by and make sure you follow us and drop in regularly. Please comment and don't hesitate to ask if you have a doubt. A special thanks to Karen Ellis for proof-reading this post.