Localizable.strings (base) x English

Question

When you localize a file on Xcode 5 now, you have this "base" file, that I understand will be used if the user is using another language that was not localized. On older versions of Xcode, you did not have that.

I want english to be the base language, that will be used by default. So I guess that with this "base" kind, I did not need to have an "english" localization (if I want english to be de default), right? I simply put all english localization inside the "base".

Is this correct?

Answer 1

Sounds good to me.

I have always had big troubles if I let Xcode generate new language files for me so I started to create them on my own with this little script.

• In Xcode just add the languages in the project settings (under Localizations) an make sure "Use Base Internationalization" is activated
• Run the script. This now creates all the needed translation files in you tree
• Just drag and drop them from you finder in your project (deselect the copy option)

The great think about the script is, if you have any updates in your code the script takes care of this and updates your translation files. Apple's own genstrings always overwrites everything.

Edit: I wrote a blog post about translating with iLocalize, might be interesting.