[html-formfu] Locale::Maketext::Lexicon now supports FormFu

[Clinton Gormley]

Hi all

I've just released version 0.77 of Locale::Makextext::Lexicon with its
accompanying Locale::Maketext::Extract and xgettext.pl, which finally
supports HTML::FormFu config files.

http://search.cpan.org/~drtech/Locale-Maketext-Lexicon-0.77

For those already familiar with Locale::Maketext::Lexicon:
----------------------------------------------------------
Officially, FormFu has been supported for a long time, but the parser
was broken from the start.

The new parser uses YAML.pm, and should work just fine, recognising any
keys that match /_loc$/ and have a scalar value.

Those of you who already use xgettext.pl, please download this version,
try it out, and report any bugs to:

http://rt.cpan.org/Dist/Display.html?Queue=Locale-Maketext-Lexicon


For those of you who don't use Locale::Maketext::Lexicon:
---------------------------------------------------------
If you're planning on translating your website or application, you
should really consider it.

L::M::Lexicon subclasses Locale::Maketext to give you a powerful i18n
module, with an easy interface for your translators.  

As you write your code, you 'mark' strings that need to be translated,
for instance:

    Instead of: print 'Hello world';
    You write : print _('Hello world');

Or in your FormFu config files:

    Instead of:   content:     Hello world
    You write :   content_loc: Hello world

You can also pass parameters to strings, eg:

   print _('I found [quant,_1,file,files,no files at all]',$files_found)

You can use these strings in your Perl code, your Template Toolkit,
Text::Template, Mason, YAML or FormFu files.

At any time, you can use xgettext.pl to read through all of your
code/templates/config and to extract these strings into a gettext PO
file, which your translators can edit easily using (eg) Poedit. 

I write this not as the genius who came up with these modules, but as
somebody who has just gone through a painful migration from a
not-so-clever i18n strategy to using Locale::Maketext*. I became a
maintainer of Locale::Maketext::Lexicon because I liked what it did, and
wanted to make it better :)

If you'd like to read more, start with these links:

 - To understand the issues around i18n:
   http://search.cpan.org/~ferreira/Locale-Maketext-1.13/lib/Locale/Maketext/TPJ13.pod

 - The Locale::Maketext approach to solving these issues:
   http://search.cpan.org/~ferreira/Locale-Maketext-1.13/lib/Locale/Maketext.pod

 - The Locale::Maketext::Lexicon interface to Locale::Maketext to make
   it all a bit more maintainable than storing all of your strings in a
   Perl module:
   http://search.cpan.org/~drtech/Locale-Maketext-Lexicon-0.77/lib/Locale/Maketext/Lexicon.pm 

 - The xgettext.pl script for extracting all translatable strings into
   a .po file:
   http://search.cpan.org/~drtech/Locale-Maketext-Lexicon-0.77/lib/Locale/Maketext/Lexicon.pm

 - The Poedit cross-platform application which your translators can use
   to edit your .po file:
   http://www.poedit.net/


If you find any bugs, have any suggestions or patches, or need help with
this, please feel free to drop me a line on drtech at cpan.org, or open a
bug in:

http://rt.cpan.org/Dist/Display.html?Queue=Locale-Maketext-Lexicon

thanks for reading this far :)

Clint