Revamped and reborn ReNamer 6.0

den4b · 2014-08-10 12:53

We now got a brand new ReNamer as was promised!

Let's start with a little bit of history...

The very first ReNamer 1.00 was released in November 2004, a whole decade ago! It was a joy working on this application, tackling different challenges, addressing your feedback and suggestions. A lot has changed since the first version: logic, functionality, design, look and feel. The only thing that staid the same is the development environment - Delphi 7. While it still remains a powerful development environment, it is even older than ReNamer itself. The compatibility with latest operating systems and features is seriously behind, making any further development really difficult.

Of course, there are newer versions of Delphi available, but the ownership has changed hands so many times that its development has been very inconsistent and full of problems, plus a hefty €1200-€5000 price tag for the latest Delphi XE6.

Lazarus is the solution!

Lazarus is a professional open-source cross platform IDE powered by Free Pascal. It is a software development platform build by open source community, by people and for people.

Past two months were spent migrating ReNamer to the new development platform. This is necessary in order to secure the future development and bring in tons of new features. It took a little longer than originally anticipated, but it is well worth it.

The first preview release is finally ready for public testing: ReNamer v6.0 Alpha.
Translators, please look into Languages folder and read the updated Localization article.

It now comes bundled with 6 languages: Russian, Spanish, French, Serbian, Japanese and Polish. Your system language will be automatically picked up at the start and an appropriate language will be loaded. Language menu will be added shortly, in the meantime you can force it to load a specific language using instructions in Localization article.

A summary of changes in ReNamer 6.0.0.1 Alpha:

* Converted application project from Delphi 7 to Lazarus/FPC;
* Added multilingual support using PO files in Languages folder;
* Added built-in version information, moving to x.x.x.x versioning;
* Updated icons from BMP to PNG with alpha-blending;
* Converted mini buttons above rules and files tables into toolbars with automatic resizing to better fit localized text;
* Error column is now visible by default;
* Replaced PascalScript package (from SVN dated 11 November 2008) with an updated version from component library in Lazarus;
* EXIF, IPTC, HTML meta tags can now handle Unicode filenames;
* Added toolbar button for accessing context menu of files table columns;
* UserInput rule can now read content from Unicode filenames;
* Advanced Pascal Script editor with syntax highlighting, code folding, etc;
* Correctly restore negative window position on multi-monitor setups;
* Pascal Script code can contain Unicode characters (internally stored as UTF8 encoded string);
* Display icon in the context menu for "Add to ReNamer" option;
* Items added via /enqueue parameter are sent in a group instead of individually, to prevent auto preview and validation per sent item;

Andrew · 2014-08-13 23:03

den4b wrote:

We now got a brand new ReNamer as was promised!

Congratulations Denis, can't wait to check it out! Am excited about this new version, especially when I see things like the following in the change log:

den4b wrote:

* Advanced Pascal Script editor with syntax highlighting, code folding, etc;

Sounds nifty, downloading right now!

Edit: Whoa, EXE size has doubled! Also, any way to turn off that 80-character vertical line?

Last edited by Andrew (2014-08-14 19:45)

den4b · 2014-08-17 14:49

ReNamer 6.0.0.2 Alpha released, with languages menu and main menu accelerators.

Languages menu contains individual languages (all found *.po files) with their corresponding country flags, and also two special options:

Default - original interface language.
Autodetect - detects user language via Locale ID, "--lang" parameter and "LANG" environmental variable.

den4b · 2014-08-17 14:52

Andrew, the 80-character gutter line can be disabled, but I think it is actually useful.

It promotes a more readable code without actually enforcing any limitations.

Andrew · 2014-08-17 19:45

den4b wrote:

Andrew, the 80-character gutter line can be disabled, but I think it is actually useful.
It promotes a more readable code without actually enforcing any limitations.

Meh, I don't think it's all that useful. If turning it off can be made a setting that would be nice but it's not a priority. Would also be nice to have a word wrap feature.

Coming to languages, how is the language code in the .PO file i.e. "Language: es\n" or "Language: fr\n" translated into the string "Spanish" or "French"? Is that hard-coded in the program? If so that means to get a new .PO to be listed in the menu you'll have to modify and recompile the program, right? Isn't it possible to have the language name also mentioned in the .PO file itself, like so:

"Language: es\n"
"DisplayLanguage: Spanish\n"

"Language: fr\n"
"DisplayLanguage: French\n"

That way simply adding a .PO to the Languages directory would make it show up correctly in the menu without needing to modify the program (the keyboard accelerators would need to be assigned dynamically of course). Is this possible?

Also, can the current system correctly handle multiple languages per country (so the flags for all of them will be the same)?

Last edited by Andrew (2014-08-17 19:49)

den4b · 2014-08-20 22:08

ReNamer 6.0.0.4 Alpha released.

Language details and list of translators is now built in to PO file headers. Please read Localization article for mode details.

List of recent changes:

6.0.0.4 Alpha
* Language details and list of translators are stored in PO file headers;
* List of translators is displayed upon selecting a different language;
* Display popup menus for Alphabet and Scripts buttons below the button;
6.0.0.3 Alpha
* Added hints to the main window status bar;
* Resized components on Terms Of Use form to fit captions;
* Added menu accelerators to all context menus;
* Added WideCaseSentence function to PascalScript rule;

den4b · 2014-08-20 22:12

Andrew,

Before v6.0.0.4, full language names were extracted from a hard-coded list of most common language names. New language files would have been detected and displayed either with a full language name, if found in the hard-coded list, or as a language code from the filename.

From v6.0.0.4, language details and list of translators are stored in PO file headers, similar to what you have suggested.

In conflicting situations XX_YY naming format can be used. More info in Localization article.

Andrew · 2014-08-22 22:39

den4b wrote:

From v6.0.0.4, language details and list of translators are stored in PO file headers, similar to what you have suggested.

Cool, and works really well too!

Few more things:

1) The current language is shown with a check mark that replaces the flag. Instead of a check mark what do you think about retaining the flag and highlighting the current language in bold?

2) Currently I don't think X-Country-Name is used anywhere, right? How about displaying it in two places:

i) In the dialog shown when you select a language (as a line between X-Language-Name and X-Translators).

ii) In the menu as Language Name (Country Name)? This way instead of two instances of English with just a small US or UK flag to distinguish, we'd have English (US) and English (UK). Similarly Portuguese (Portugal) and Portuguese (Brazil) instead of simply two instances of Portuguese.

Last edited by Andrew (2014-08-22 22:43)

den4b · 2014-09-18 09:59

Andrew wrote:

1) The current language is shown with a check mark that replaces the flag. Instead of a check mark what do you think about retaining the flag and highlighting the current language in bold?

I don't like the idea of changing the style of menu items to highlighting the selected item. It goes against some user interface practices.

Andrew wrote:

2) Currently I don't think X-Country-Name is used anywhere, right? How about displaying it in two places:
i) In the dialog shown when you select a language (as a line between X-Language-Name and X-Translators).
ii) In the menu as Language Name (Country Name)? This way instead of two instances of English with just a small US or UK flag to distinguish, we'd have English (US) and English (UK). Similarly Portuguese (Portugal) and Portuguese (Brazil) instead of simply two instances of Portuguese.

I liked that idea initially and tried it, but it didn't look great on practice. All languages appear with redundant description, e.g. Russian (Russia), Spanish (Spain), French (France), etc. Instead, I decided to display native language name in the brackets, e.g. Russian (Русский), Japanese (日本語), etc.

For language name clashes, we can set the "X-Language-Name" header to "Language Name (Country Name)". In the meantime, "X-Country-Name" header is not used directly, but may be in future.

More detailed instructions: http://www.den4b.com/wiki/Localization

den4b · 2014-09-18 10:03

A significant update of ReNamer Alpha has been released.

We will be ready to move to a Beta stage shortly.

6.0.0.8 Alpha
* Common component library dialog messages and buttons are now translated;
* Updated Japanese language file;
6.0.0.7 Alpha
* Store all user data in user profile directory for Installer version;
* Automatic migration of data from VirtualStore;
* Use Settings.ini instead of <Application>.ini naming for settings;
6.0.0.6 Alpha
* Unicode support for names of scripts, translits, presets;
* Added "Case sensitive" option to the Strip rule;
* Added scope options to the Strip rule: Everywhere, Leading, Trailing;
6.0.0.5 Alpha
* List of languages is sorted alphabetically instead of file system order;
* Added native language names to language titles;

den4b Forum

#1 2014-08-10 12:53

Revamped and reborn ReNamer 6.0

#2 2014-08-13 23:03

Re: Revamped and reborn ReNamer 6.0

#3 2014-08-17 14:49

Re: Revamped and reborn ReNamer 6.0

#4 2014-08-17 14:52

Re: Revamped and reborn ReNamer 6.0

#5 2014-08-17 19:45

Re: Revamped and reborn ReNamer 6.0

#6 2014-08-20 22:08

Re: Revamped and reborn ReNamer 6.0

#7 2014-08-20 22:12

Re: Revamped and reborn ReNamer 6.0

#8 2014-08-22 22:39

Re: Revamped and reborn ReNamer 6.0

#9 2014-09-18 09:59

Re: Revamped and reborn ReNamer 6.0

#10 2014-09-18 10:03

Re: Revamped and reborn ReNamer 6.0

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