
Ask HN: How are you managing your localization across platforms? - iksn
We have apps on 3 different platforms (mobile &amp; web) and currently support 4 languages, more to come.<p>Our current solution to mange the translations involves a lot manual work (copy pasting) which makes it error prone. We were not able to find a easy solution to help us with this problem, how are you managing your localization, what tools are you using?<p>Thanks in advance.
======
dmcy22
Definitely recommend externalizing your strings into one of the standard
localization file formats (.po, .strings, XLIFF etc.) as mtmail suggested.

Once your content is in a file, you'll be able to use a platform like
Transifex (disclosure: I work there) to manage and automate your localization
process. You'll be able to invite your translators, track the progress of
work, and communicate directly with them. Once the translations are done, you
can get the translated files via the web UI, API, or command-line tool and use
them in your apps.

Most of our customers are software companies and use Transifex to make
localization manageable even with daily or weekly releases. We have a case
study of Eventbrite on our site at
[https://www.transifex.com/customers/casestudies/eventbrite/](https://www.transifex.com/customers/casestudies/eventbrite/).
Disqus also talked about how they use Transifex at a conference a few years
back: [http://confreaks.tv/videos/kodio_2014-continuous-
translation...](http://confreaks.tv/videos/kodio_2014-continuous-
translation-i18n-in-agile-projects).

Hope that helps!

------
mtmail
Look for .po files, xliff or .property files. There are quite a few standards
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation_memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation_memory)

There is desktop software as well as SaaS websites who offer to manage those
files with online editors for you. Some have APIs that allow you to pull new
translations (or whole files in the format of your choice). It makes it also
easier when dealing with external translators or if you're in a hurry and want
to pay somebody to translate just one string.

I used [http://gengo.com/](http://gengo.com/) in the past but they seem to
have gone full enterprise now.
[https://www.transifex.com/](https://www.transifex.com/) and
[https://poeditor.com/](https://poeditor.com/) look like good alternatives.
I'm sure there are many others.

You can download and install the open source
[http://pootle.translatehouse.org/](http://pootle.translatehouse.org/). That's
what big open source projects like LibreOffice use.

------
twunde
I typically use .po files, which I think is the linux standard. Most languages
should be able to use .po files, or an equivalent format. It might make sense
to create a git submodule for all of your .po files and give all your repos
access to it, do it acts as a shared library across all of your languages,
frameworks and tooling

