Re: Multilingual Screens

["Denis Robitaille" <DRobitaille@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

We are in the exact same situation here. (french and english in north america, 
french, english , sweedish and german in europe). We are using MSGCON 
extensively. And you are wright, our application are split in 2 
parts(libraries): language independant (1 library for all languages) and 
language dependant (1 library per languages). The text part of all command, 
screen, report and menu are defined as MSGCON. Only panel group (help text) are 
duplicated in each language. As for ERRMDGID, we do not use that for error 
condition, we use a message subfile inside the DSPF.

I would prefer to have the message text loaded at run time and could live with 
the overhead (hardware is cheaper than the manpower used to keep everyting in 
sync). The MSGID keyword allows just that. But, when we develop the screen with 
SDA, if we use MSGID, all we see is a bunch of 'OOOOO' so desining the screen 
becomes too dificult. Also, the MSGID keyword is not supported by PRTF, menu .

One thing we did, and that is now greatly apreciated by my programmers, is a 
utility to replace the WRKMSGF command. We can now rename, copy individual 
message, syncronise message file for different languages ...

Denis Robitaille
Cascades Inc
819 363 5187
DRobitaille@cascades.com

>>> <Chris.Chambers@v2music.com> 01/06 12:30 pm >>>


I am constructing a system which needs the screens to be presented to each
user in the langauage of their choice(eg English, German, French, Italian
and Greek).

I am initially exploring this using message files via the ERRMSGID and
MSGCON keywords in the DDS. But it seems one has to designate the exact
message file at compilation and so compile the DDS once for each language
used which is a pain and means one has to retain multiple libraries of
screens.

Perhaps the COBOL programs could populate the texts on screen using a
different msg file via OVRDBF at run time but what about the time overhead
and the normal DDS ERRMSG processing would be lost.

Anyone got any experience in this area? Any ideas or tips ideas gratefully
appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Chris


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