Filemaker 12 in multi-language

[Guru Salem]

I need advice to develop a small application to support in multi-languages.

its should support to all languages like labels, button names and title of the layout..

could any one please share your suggestion to bring this feature to my fm 12 application

Many thanks in advance for your valuable time

[Vaughan]

It's a lot of work.

One way is to create a table with records for each language. The records will have fields for every label, button name, custom dialog message... every single string that needs to be localised. Layouts will need to display these fields instead of text objects, same for buttons and custom dialogs.

[RodSierra]

We do something similar to what Vaughan mentioned, each field label is a single row portal, incrementing the initial row then gives us the field references. Also in the portal is a calculated container field for background color, and the tooltip refences a field from the table for the labels. We set a global on layout load that sets the relationship for the layout via the layout name. Another script run on record load sets appropriate background colors or turns off buttons based on record content.

This was setup before conditional formatting, and variables. It is a whole lot of work, but makes adding a language quite easy once its in place. It also allows for dynamic switching between languages at any time via a language select button on each layout.

Also check FM12 for language field entry compatibility, since the introduction of unicode in FM7, certain languages such as Thai cannot be entered directly into fields, this has been reported but never fixed. I have not downloaded FM12 yet to see if this has been fixed.