Although it may look a bit tough, translating ALShow skins is actually extremely easy once you know a couple things and follow a simple method designed to make translating them as fast and easy as possible.
There are only 2 areas that need to be done:
1) "tooltip" attributes
2) Graphics (the actual graphic work will be done by a designer here at ESTsoft)
Both of those are done in the skin XML files that reside in the "skin.ask" file. To get to the files, use ALZip to extract the skin ASK file to a new folder exactly as you would for any ZIP file.
Step 1: Translating "tooltips"
******************************
There are exactly 53 text items that need to be translated in all of the XML skin files (total). By file:
Main.xml = 17
Control.xml = 10
Playlist.xml = 22
TopControl.xml = 5
(Please note that some skins may vary slightly from the above. e.g. In "Orange Soda", the TopControl.xml file only has 4 items.)
All text that needs to be translated looks like the following line:
Only the quoted tooltip text needs to be translated. i.e. In the example above, only "Mute On/Off (Ctrl+M)" needs to be translated.
The easiest way to do this is to load all 4 XML skin files into a text editor, use the "Find in files" function, then use the results to navigate to the text that needs to be translated. Please visit the translators page at the ALTools web site for more information on free text editors, tools, and tutorials that can make this much easier for you.
Step 2: Translating Graphics
****************************
Instead of translating inside the graphics themselves, please translate directly inside the Main.xml file. A designer will make the necessary changes before the skin is uploaded or packaged with the installer.
There are exactly 22 pieces of text in graphics that need to be translated, with 6 of them being optional. (Some are not used in every skin and 1 is only available in Korea at the moment.) A graphic designer at ESTsoft will change the graphics with your translation below.
The following are the English equivalents with descriptions where it is not clear. The ampersand (&) is used to indicate an underlined character as is traditionally used in programming for keyboard navigation. Some buttons are very small and can only accomodate a small amount of text.
The right side of the equals sign (=) has a brief description and the left side has the translation.
Please translate the left side as you believe it would sound best in your language, or as you believe it would most easily be understood. e.g. "R" for reset makes sense in English, but you may need to use something else.
MENU
****
File=&File
Play=&Play
Screen=&Screen
Captions=&Captions
Help=&Help
PLAYLIST & BOOKMARKS
********************
Playlist Tab=Playlist
Bookmarks Tab=Bookmarks
Add Item=Add
Delete Item=Del
Sort Items=Sort
Open Save Playlist=List
Edit Bookmark=Edit
Captions=Cap
Screen=Scrn
** Note that the reset buttons are very small and can only accomodate a single character.
Reset=R
PLAYBACK CONTROLS
*****************
** Note: These are not used in most skins and are optional. See "Orange Soda" for an example where they are used.
Previous=PREV
Stop=STOP
Play=PLAY
Next=NEXT
Open=OPEN
OTHER
*****
** Note: The playlist toggle button is very small an can only accomodate up to 2 characters.
Playlist Toggle=PL
** Note: The ALShow Internet Theater is not available outside of Korea.
