Small Basic - Language Packs

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This blog is about how to use Small Basic with different regional langauges.

Available Languages

Using Small Basic with different languages has grown.  Version 1.2 now supports the following languages.

  • English
  • Arabic
  • Czech
  • German
  • Spanish
  • French
  • Hebrew
  • Croatian
  • Icelandic
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Dutch
  • Polish
  • Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal)
  • Russian
  • Turkish
  • Chinese (Simplified and Traditional)

More languages are on the way too.

How it Works

To add languages for SmallBasicLibrary intellisense (including extensions) a copy of the command syntax xml is required.  Similarly, a copy of the xml for the interface IDE needs a translation of a Strings resx file.

Each potential language has a language (culture) code, usually just a 2 character abreviation (e.g. de for German), sometimes with multiple regional variants (e.g. de-CH for Switzerland).

The language xml and resx files contain a language code in the file name (e.g. SmallBasicLibrary.de.xml and Strings.de.resx for German).

Examples of these can be seen in the Small Basic installation folder.

sb_listing

To add language capabilities for extensions the new langauge intellisense xml should be added to the lib folder with the extension dll and default English intellisense xml.

Using Other Languages

As well as installing with a specific language you can change the language when you start Small Basic.

Start Small Basic in any language from the command line (cmd.exe) with the following commands.  The example below is for German, assuming a standard 64 bit installation location.

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Small Basic
SB /lang:de translate-2

Adding New Languages

To add another language you just need to create the new xml (SmallBasic Library and Strings) with the required translations.  This can be a tedious process so I created a small app to do an auto translations using Bing translation.  Since the translation may not be perfect it will usually require some work by a native speaker, but this auto method does a lot of the initial work for you.

See the post below in the Small Basic forum for more details.

Regarding the possibility of creating a Norwegian translation of Small Basic

My translation application requires a free Bing Translate subscription to be set up.

To get the translation application, visit Download Link, then navigate down to the Translation section.  Click the small SB icon appicon_32 at the Translation title for the application, or one of the language packs I have already created.

The application looks like this...

translate

And the help...

translate1

This is how the additional TranslateXML.settings file you need might look...

translate-paths

This is the Microsoft Translator Link.