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About This Document

Text and Localization

Exploring Palm OS®

This book describes how to write easily localizable code for Palm OS®. Different countries represent characters, strings, numbers, and dates in different ways. This book describes how to write code that does not make assumptions about the representations of these items and runs properly for all languages that Palm OS supports.

This book does not cover the following:

  • How to work with text fields or display text on the screen. See the "Displaying Text" chapter of Exploring Palm OS: User Interface for that information.
  • The tools used to localize an application. Consult the documentation specific to your toolset for that information.
  • How to work with or write a front-end processor (FEP) for text entry. Such material is described in Exploring Palm OS: Creating a FEP.

IMPORTANT: The Exploring Palm OS series is intended for developers creating native applications for Palm OS Cobalt. If you are interested in developing applications that work through PACE and that also run on earlier Palm OS releases, read the latest versions of the Palm OS Programmer's API Reference and Palm OS Programmer's Companion instead.

Who Should Read This Book ^TOP^

You should read this book if you are a Palm OS software developer who writes applications, libraries, pinlets, or any other type of program that manipulates text strings. Even if you do not plan to localize your application, it is still a good idea to follow the recommendations in this book. It will save you time if your plans change later.

Because virtually all Palm OS developers require some knowledge of how to work with text strings, this book is intended for developers with all levels of familiarity with Palm OS, from novice to expert. Novice programmers should first read Exploring Palm OS: Programming Basics to gain an understanding of the basic structure of a Palm OS application.

Expert Palm OS programmers will find that much of the material in this book is familiar and may want to just skim it. Differences between the Palm OS Garnet API set and the Palm OS Cobalt API set are outlined in Exploring Palm OS: Porting Applications to Palm OS Cobalt.

What This Book Contains ^TOP^

This book contains the following information:

Changes to This Book ^TOP^

3111-003

3111-002

3111-001

  • Initial version

The Exploring Palm OS Series ^TOP^

This book is a part of the Exploring Palm OS series. Together, the books in this series document and explain how to use the APIs exposed to third-party developers by the fully ARM-native versions of Palm OS, beginning with Palm OS Cobalt. Each of the books in the Exploring Palm OS series explains one aspect of the Palm operating system and contains both conceptual and reference documentation for the pertinent technology.

As of this writing, the complete Exploring Palm OS series consists of the following titles:

  • Exploring Palm OS: Programming Basics
  • Exploring Palm OS: Memory, Databases, and Files
  • Exploring Palm OS: User Interface
  • Exploring Palm OS: User Interface Guidelines (coming soon)
  • Exploring Palm OS: System Management
  • Exploring Palm OS: Text and Localization
  • Exploring Palm OS: Input Services
  • Exploring Palm OS: High-Level Communications
  • Exploring Palm OS: Low-Level Communications
  • Exploring Palm OS: Telephony and SMS
  • Exploring Palm OS: Multimedia
  • Exploring Palm OS: Security and Cryptography
  • Exploring Palm OS: Creating a FEP (coming soon)
  • Exploring Palm OS: Porting Applications to Palm OS Cobalt

Additional Resources ^TOP^