Babylon.NET - translating software made easy
A friend of mine (and former boss… oh yeah, quite some time ago), Martin Geier, wrote a nice application that allows you to translate .NET resources from one language to another. The program is called Babylon.NET and has been released at redpin.eu.
The application targets one specific problem: translation of applications. I don’t know how often you had to do that but I’m from a region where a lot of people speak German and Italian. We, therefore, know both languages and have the benefit of publishing software for both languages. But translating software (even that it has gotten better with the advent of Visual Studio .NET, 2005, 2008) is still a very tedious and error-prone task.
Babylon.NET focuses on .NET projects created in Visual Studio. It offers features that are tailored to support developers or translators during their tasks while translating projects hat have been created in Visual Studio and are managed with Visual Studio. Some of these features are:
- Directly reads Visual Studio project files to start a new translation project.
- Synchronizes changes in the Visual Studio project with the translation project at any time.
- Writes localized resource strings directly to the Visual Studio resource files.
- Keeps track of the translation status for every single resource string in every locale.
- Supports the reviewing process of the localization by keeping track of the quality status for every single recource string in every locale.
- Automatic verifier checks for common problems during localization such as inconsistent translations, string.Format placeholder errors or punctuation errors.
- Separate, restricted “Translator” editition can be given to every translator working on the project.
- Offers a modern, simple and intuitive user interface tailored to the localization process.
These are only some of the interesting features in Babylon.NET that you might find interesting when translating a piece of software. For more information please visit the website at redpin.eu. They have also a trial version for download. 
Published on Aug 31st, 2008 —
Tags: .NET, .NET Framework, Babylon.NET, C#, Software translation 
digg it!
kick it
It is usefull and can used in productive enviroment. But the tool is programed in rush not with care. The options from devexpress ui are not used suggestive. For example: You may use the filter panel but no autofilter row. You can show the group panel but grouping is not allowed. The link to the documents is frouzy implemented and some features are missed. In V1.1 it was not possible to use the form preview bec. you can’t select the assembly. The free translater module was calling “select the assembly”.
Bug reports and feature request ignored.
This is a nice tool if you have to translate a small application at one time but if you need to translate it in an trusty way - you should look arround for another tool.
Comment by Knuddlbaer — January 23, 2009 @ 12:30 am