Daily Archives: February 12, 2014

Storyboards in any Language

Since the advent of NSLocalizedString, iOS localization practices haven’t changed much. But the new storyboards are easier to translate, particularly if you enable internationalization from the outset. To do this in Xcode 5:

  1. From the project settings (Info page), check Use base internationalization.
  2. For each storyboard, go to the File Inspector (utilities pane), enable Localization, and check at least Base and English.  This will extract strings files that others can translate or customize.
  3. Un-install and then re-install the app from target simulators or devices.

After initial setup, adding languages and dropping in strings files is easy, and quicker than ibtool-importing strings into individual xibs.

Short Form

A friend today challenged me on letting this blog go a bit dormant.  True, I once averaged about a post a day; now it’s about one a month.  The thing he missed most were the (searchable) tips and quick fixes that I often tuck away here.

So, I’m going to pick it up a bit, favoring short form over long form and frequency over duration, but hopefully not quantity over quality. It won’t be thing a day, but at least it’ll be better than silence. Hopefully.