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Internationalization Framework

1 post · Sep 2017

What this trail covers

This thread tracks the evolution of Slack's internationalization capabilities, focusing on building robust systems for supporting multiple languages. Initial posts detail the launch of French, German, and Spanish localization, including the challenges of preparing strings, choosing localization formats (ICU MessageFormat), and implementing pseudolocalization for testing. Subsequent posts will likely cover further language expansions, tooling improvements, and integration into ongoing development workflows.

All Slack trails
  1. Localizing SlackThis post details the foundational work for localizing Slack, including preparing strings embedded in HTML templates and business logic by creating language-specific helpers. It introduces the use of ICU MessageFormat for complex string handling and the decision to use English strings as keys. The post describes the 'string jam' process to involve the entire Web Engineering team, the use of pseudolocalization for testing, and the development of linting tools and release processes to ensure translated strings are used in production. It also highlights additional challenges like localizing emoji names, updating the /remind command, search index stemming, overriding device locales, Slackbot language awareness, date/list formatting, and handling ambiguous English words.