Programming iOS 6, 3rd Edition

Localization

A device can be set by the user to prefer a certain language as its primary language. You might like the text in your app’s interface to respond to this situation by appearing in that language. This is achieved by localizing the app for that language.

Localization operates through localization folders in your project and in the built app bundle. Let’s say that a resource in one of these localization folders has a counterpart in the other localization folders. Then, when your app goes to load such a resource, it automatically loads the one appropriate to the user’s preferred language.

For example, if there’s a copy of InfoPlist.strings in the English localization folder and a copy of InfoPlist.strings in the French localization folder, the latter will be used when the app needs a copy of InfoPlist.strings on a device on which French is the preferred language. Not for nothing have I used InfoPlist.strings as my example. This is a file that’s present by default in your project — for example, it appears in our Empty Window example project — but its purpose wasn’t discussed in Chapter 6, so presumably you’ve been on tenterhooks since then, wondering what it was for. Well, it’s a .strings file; the purpose of a .strings file is to be localized.

The purpose of this particular .strings file, InfoPlist.strings, is to store localized versions of Info.plist key values. So, for example, the value of the CFBundleDisplayName key, as set in your project’s Info.plist file, appears under ...