Inside Macintosh: Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines / Part 1 - Fundamentals: Chapter 2 - General Design Considerations

Worldwide Compatibility

Macintosh system software is designed to address the complex problems you'll encounter when you design your applications to be compatible with regional, linguistic, and writing system differences around the globe. The Macintosh script management system (which is one or more script systems, the Script Manager, and other text-handling managers) allows your application to handle text in many different languages.

It's much easier to include worldwide compatibility from the beginning
of your development process than to try to incorporate support for script systems after your product is complete. This may mean that you create your application so that it is easy to localize, or adapt for use in a specific area. Localizing software involves translating an application's menus, dialog boxes, alert boxes, and content areas into a language or regional dialect.

The following sections outline a number of issues to consider before you develop software for worldwide use. For a complete description of the issues and a discussion of technical implementation, see Inside Macintosh: Text and Inside Macintosh: Overview. These books discuss the routines that assist you in developing your application for worldwide use. See Guide to Macintosh Software Localization (available from APDA) for details on script systems and the localization process. See the section "APDA" on page 332 in Appendix A, "Resources," for information about how to contact APDA.

Subtopics

Cultural Values

Resources

Language Differences

Text Display and Text Editing

Default Alignment of Interface Elements

Keyboards

Fonts