Japanese Dictionary Files, Characters In Filenames

[DavidPayne]

Hi,

I have created an installer for a Java product, that has some files supplied with it, with Japanese characters in their names.

At first, I found that the Japanese characters were being removed, and replaced with the squares you expect to see when a font doesn't support a character (although the East Asian fonts were definitely installed), in Windows XP, and just blank spaces in Vista, when the files were looked at in Windows Explorer.

From reading a couple of posts here, I found that the solution was to re-create my AIP file, with the base language as Japanese, which I did, and it worked correctly.

However, our Japanese customer (I do not speak Japanese, and neither does anyone in my office), has commented that some of the text is 'strange' - I'm not sure what that means, but he asked to for a dictionary to translate the text. We supplied him with this (AIL file), but when I try to add it to the project, I don't think it is making any difference to the text.

I have tried to remove the Japanese language from the options, hoping that it will be replaced with the new translation, but I cannot, because the following error appears: "This is the project language. You can not unselect this item", which makes sense.

So - my questions are:
1 - Am I right that the project language has to be Japanese for the characters to appear correctly in installed file names?

2 - Am I right that I cannot change the Japanese language, if it is my project language?

3 - Do you know how thoroughly tested your default Japanese translations have been? I have a suspicion that our customer is being extremely picky about the translations - we have many other Japanese users, who have never complained about the language in the installer.

4 - If we can't convince the customer that the language is OK, are you willing/able to replace the Japanese translations that you have, with our customer's translations? If so, how long is that likely to take?

Many thanks,
David Payne.

[Cosmin]

Hi,

1 - Am I right that the project language has to be Japanese for the characters to appear correctly in installed file names?

In order to use Japanese characters in an installation package, the codepage used during the installation of that package must be Japanese.

This means that Japanese is one of the languages in the package (not necessarily the base-one) and the installation is performed in Japanese (the user has the system locale set to Japanese).

2 - Am I right that I cannot change the Japanese language, if it is my project language?

You cannot de-select the project language in the "Translations" page. However, you can modify the dictionary used for this language. The dictionary is stored in the Advanced Installer installation folder (usually "C:\Program Files\Caphyon\Advanced Installer 6.1.1\dictionaries\ui_ja.ail").

Note that the language of the package is included in the package at build-time, therefore if you modify the dictionary between builds the modified version will be included in the package.

3 - Do you know how thoroughly tested your default Japanese translations have been?

Our Japanese translation has been created by a native Japanese speaker and it has been approved by two other Japanese translators. Therefore, we are confident that the Japanese dictionary is correct.

4 - If we can't convince the customer that the language is OK, are you willing/able to replace the Japanese translations that you have, with our customer's translations?

In order for us to make a decision about this we need the translation proposed by your client so it can be verified by our translators. Therefore, you can send us the translation to support at advancedinstaller dot com and we will send it to our translators.

Note that you can change the dictionary used in you package by modifying or replacing the dictionary file in the Advanced Installer installation folder (there is no need to wait until we make a decision about the translation).

Regards,
Cosmin

[DavidPayne]

OK - thanks for that - all makes sense.

We've convinced the client to go with your translations, thankfully!

However, I now have another problem, I've changed nothing in the installer, other than adding a new .ail file in the Dictionaries tab of the Translations section, and then removing the same one. Now, on the same machine, without changing the regional settings at all, when I run a newly built installer, the Japanese characters are all showing as their unicode escapes: /u30bb, etc...

If you can give me any clue as to why this would be, I would really, really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Dave Payne.

[DavidPayne]

It's OK - panic over - I closed the project and opened it again. Now it's correct

Sorry to waste your time, just on a REALLY tight deadline...!