Pompeu

Automatic xib and storyboard localizations for iOS

Installation

The easiest way to install Pompeu is using Cocoa Pods:

pod 'Pompeu', '~> 1.0'

Example of usage

On your UIViewController subclass, you just have to call to pmp_localizate. Typically, you would do this at the end of your viewDidLoad method.

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
  [super viewDidLoad];
  [self pmp_localizate];
}

By doing this call, Pompeu will:

• Iterate on the view controller's view subviews and localize all found strings.
• Localize the UINavigationItem by translating its title and titleView as well as all contained UIBarButtonItems title.
• Localize the array of toolbar items.
• Localize the UITabBarItem.
• Get the self.tabBarController and localize its view controller's UITabBarItems.

Also, you can call pmp_localizate on UIView instances directly. This would localizate all the contained subviews.

Affected classes

When iterating on the UIView subview's hierarchy, Pompeu is seeking for specific subclasses to localize:

• UILabel: localizing the text property.
• UIButton: localizing the title property for the states UIControlStateNormal, UIControlStateHighlighted, UIControlStateSelected and UIControlStateDisabled.
• UITextView: localizing the text property.
• UITextField: localizing the text and placeholder property.
• UISegmentedControl: localizing all segments titles.

Working with Localization Prefixes

Use the Pompeu class to configure the localization prefixes. A prefix is used to define which strings must be localized and which don't. The Pompeu object has a property (array) called localizationPrefixes which by default is empty. This means that all strings will be localized.

To add a custom prefix just set a custom array to localizationPrefixes. For example, by doing:

[Pompeu defaultPompeu].localizationPrefixes = @[@"ls_"];

only the strings with a ls_ prefix will be localized.

Note:By default, all localization calls uses a default instance of the Pompeu class. To use an specific pompeu instance use the method pmp_localizateWithPompeu: instead of pmp_localizate.

Special Considerations

Best practices

The best way to use Pompeu in your project is to have a subclass of UIViewController that act as superclass of all of your other subclasses. Same applies to UITableViewController.

For example, we could define the class MJViewController (and MJTableViewController symetrically) and use them as superclasses of other UIViewControllers (and UITableViewControllers).

@interface MJViewController : UIViewController
@end

@implementation MJViewController
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
  [super viewDidLoad];
  [self pmp_localizate];
}
@end

By doing this, you don't have to add any further code to your view controllers to localize them and you are ready to go to localize as many strings as you want in your XIBs and Storyboards.

Working with UITableViews or UICollectionViews

When workign with views that use reusable cells (as UITableView or UICollectionView), we need to localize every single reusable view.

This applies even more when using in Storyboard static definitions of those reusable views. In this case, we need to call to pmp_localizate on each cell. For example, if we use a static definition on a UITableViewController subclass, we will have to add the following code:

- (UITableViewCell*)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
  UITableViewCell *cell = [super tableView:tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];
  [cell pmp_localizate];
  return cell;
}

Same applies for the headers and footers:

- (NSString*)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView titleForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    NSString *title = [super tableView:tableView titleForHeaderInSection:section];
    return [[Pompeu defaultPompeu] localizedString:title];
}

- (NSString*)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView titleForFooterInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    NSString *title = [super tableView:tableView titleForFooterInSection:section];
    return [[Pompeu defaultPompeu] localizedString:title];
}