iPhone 2.0 Localization

[kokie66]

Hi,

Is there a way to add new Region Format in iPhone 2.0? Not every country is added

And of course, is it possible to add new localization (Custom Keyboard) and how?
Any Guide, Resource will be appreciated.

Tx

[Uko]

Ok man. I'm working on Ukrainian language & I'll tell you some file locations when I'll be back home. The only thing I remember is that keyboard files should be in
/System/Library/TextInput/

[ksinno]

any suggestions on how to fix the number formats. another thing
when i recieve smses it shows the country code (lebanon in this case) and and the number, instead of actually showing the contact
for example lebanon's format +961 3 123456 (internatinally) or 03 123456 (locally) can that easily be fixed? can i see contcts instead of numbers?

[wuilly]

its located here
System:Library:Frameworks:UIKit.Framework:PhoneFor mats
and the file is:
UIPhoneFormats.plist

[shaishap]

Uko,
I'm also interested in how to customize keyboard.
I found files in /System/Library/Frameworks/UIFrameworks, called Keyboard-*.plist, but these only control the keyboard behavior when International is set to that language, (not via English and globus click to change the keyboard).
Also, This doesn't control the keyboard layout, and I couldn't get it to show characters other than ASCII.
Appreciate if you could share some input.
thanks,

[kokie66]

Tx Uko. I will appreciated that.

[Uko]

Ok /System/Library/Frameworks/UIFrameworks, called Keyboard-*.plist is really useful but after we make the keyboard itself. Now whole keyboard folder in /System/Library/TextInput/ is about 10MB
The files (I checked TextInput_ru.bundle):
_CodeSignature(dir)≈4KB
CodeResources≈4KB
Info.plist≈4KB
ResourceRules.plist≈4KB
TextInput_ru≈70KB
TextInput_ru.artwork≈3MB
Unigrams-ru_RU.dat≈4.5MB
Unigrams-ru_RU.idx≈3MB

So there is probably something useful in TextInput_ru but I have no idea what to do with that. It's unix exec. & maybe you can do something with it in Xcode or SDK but I have no idea. Now 3 last files are somehow "BIG". So I think the main things we need are in there. How to open them? No idea. I know that here on MMI was an info how to customize .artwork files. But .dat and .idx? No idea again.


Now some more things I need to know.
To enable new language shift, you add that language to GlobalPreferences.plist (or sth like that) in Pefs app, and then you should put a folder called [lang].Iproj (where [lang] is the string you've added to the .plist) in some place so that language appears in the international prefs from that time you can slowly add and test new .Iprojs . So do you know where should be that first folder placed????? And what should I do if I want to add a string called ua and add ua.Iproj folders what hould I do to have a "Ukrainian" written in the international prefs?

One more thing: where are the region format files??? Like add a new region &.... what is customized by a new region. As far as I know the localization is far more harder then region formats, so maybe we should cope with them first.



Thanks guys!!!!!
Lets rock that iPhone!
Uko

[shaishap]

OK.

Some more info:
You can find iPhoneshop2.0 tool which can open certain .artwork files.
The interesting amongst these files is: Keyboard-Latin.artwork
which holds all the keyboard layouts that are useful for us.
I dont know of a way to extract the Input-ru.artwork files, but I do believe there is a way to "extend" or use the -latin.artwork for our purpose.
I'm not familiar with the folder yo umention needs to be placed somewhere, or of the way to add a keyboard name to the preferences, but, if you change the Keyboard-xx.plist files in the UIKit.framework folder, they take effect if you change your international settings to that language.
These changes, however, do not work when your international settings is left on English, so I'm not really sure where that keyboard comes from.
Also, I have no idea how to tell iPhone what are the coordinates of the keyboard keys (layouts change between keyboards) and what each press should output.
I believe The .idx and .dat files are dictionaries. (Used for the automatic dictionary). I wouldn't worry too much about those.

lets continue drilling... ;-)

[Arad]

hi shaishap, i'm also trying to create a hebrew keyboard for the last few days.
i'm the one who created the israeli localization that was posted on ipsf forum.

it seems as the files in the UIFrameWork are not important, and i believe TextInput_xx is the right file. i did manage to edit the latin artwork file and convert the german keyboard to hebrew (just the image files), but its useless because it still types in german.

edit: now i'm not so sure, maybe the textinput is only for auto-correction...

[kokie66]

About /System/Library/TextInput/

Here are Auto Correct strings, stored into dat file. idx file is index file. I have renamed TextInput_en.boundle into TextInput_en.backup to "stop" annoying auto-correct.

I think that it has nothing to do with Keyboard.


K.

[Arad]

maybe its the UIKit file... anyone got any idea how to decompile it/get the source code?
its at /System/Library/Frameworks/UIKit.Framework

[FullGaz]

About /System/Library/TextInput/

Here are Auto Correct strings, stored into dat file. idx file is index file. I have renamed TextInput_en.boundle into TextInput_en.backup to "stop" annoying auto-correct.

I think that it has nothing to do with Keyboard.


K.

Actually, there are some .artwork files in there as well for non latin scripts. Arad has managed to edit and modify the german artwork to make it look hebrew. We need now to find how the codes are emitted from the modified keyboard. It might be from the compiled TextInput_xx file...
I'm interested in RTL scripts as well and I was wondering if anyone is aware of a fix for the text going LTR in SMSs?

[Uko]

As far as I've discovered iPhoneshop2.0 is exe... Is there sth for mac?

[shaishap]

its an open project. python files are easily used in all envs.

Arad et al,

I think we should consider the 2 issues:
1. Being able to type a latin (hebrew or other) character. this can be practiced using any keyboard layout, as long as we generate the characters we want.
2. Change the displayed keyboard.

In addition, I believe there is also a sub-issue that the characters that are typed when International is set to "English"(for example) is different than if it is set to "Hebrew". This change is mainly reflected in the Keyboard-xx.plist files.

Once we get passed these issues, we are home free.
As I noted before, The TextInput folder has to do with the dictionary capabilities (auto correction..) and should not matter too much for now.

I was able to fix our carrier logo, and phoneformats same as we had in 1.1.4. So this issue is already solved.
I also believe I can take care of the right ruler of characters in the Contacts application.

Do you have anything to report on 1 or 2 above?

[Arad]

2 is easy, just some artwork files editing. 1 is the problem, i'm pretty sure the key is the UIKit file. i have no idea how to get it's source/decompile it and later recompile.

[shaishap]

i'm not sure its that file.
Because if this file holds all the important stuff, why would there be artwork and keyboard files for each language?
I believe its somehow in the files we already know.
Besides, its a better practice to split everything per language, so that language updates are easy.
Another thought, where do the fonts for the keybaords come from? and what about the hebrew web font?

[FullGaz]

Where can we change the direction of Hebrew in SMS? Obviously, there is Hebrew support as far as displaying the right characters is concerned, but both SMSs and the window title in Safari display texts the wrong way round!

[FullGaz]

Well, it's been done people: http://iphonehe.co.il/.
Maybe some clever hacker will find out how they've done it and give some alternative free method... I mean, this guy charges about $70 for that hack!
It seems that they used the Russian keyboard to get a working Hebrew keyboard instead. In other words, Hebrew and Russian can't be used together (this is not very clever, by the way, since they are a lot of Russians in Israel...) I don't know yet if they managed to solve the problem of the RTL display of Hebrew in SMS, however.

[Arad]

Well, it's been done people: http://iphonehe.co.il/.
Maybe some clever hacker will find out how they've done it and give some alternative free method... I mean, this guy charges about $70 for that hack!
It seems that they used the Russian keyboard to get a working Hebrew keyboard instead. In other words, Hebrew and Russian can't be used together (this is not very clever, by the way, since they are a lot of Russians in Israel...) I don't know yet if they managed to solve the problem of the RTL display of Hebrew in SMS, however.

they have fixed the hebrew, its not backwards. but it is way too overpriced.

about the keyboard, me and some other guys managed to create a hebrew keyboard before they did, and we released it for free. if anyone needs help in creating his own custom keyboard i'll be glad to help out, if i have time.

[shaishap]

Arad,

I understand why the russian keyboard was the obvious choice, but if you know how to define what keyboard stroke produces what char, we can use the Engligh keyboard format, which is far easier to use (assuming we replace the artwork for the layout).
Characters are bigger, and we only need the shift as the extra character.
Let me know if you can fill in the gaps.