ACTIONSCRIPT 3 Developer’s Guide en

Chapter 56: Internationalizing
applications
Flash Player 10.1 and later, Adobe AIR 2.0 and later
The flash.globalization package makes it easier to create international software that adapts to the conventions of
different languages and regions.
More Help topics
flash.globalization package
“Localizing applications” on page 956
Charles Bihis: Want to Localize your Flex/AIR Apps?
Basics of internationalizing applications
The terms globalization and internationalization are sometimes used interchangeably. But most definitions of these
terms say that globalization refers to a combination of business and engineering processes while internationalization
refers to engineering alone.
Here are some definitions for important terms:
Globalization A broad range of engineering and business processes needed for preparing and launching products and
company activities globally. Globalization consists of engineering activities like internationalization, localization and
culturization and business activities like product management, financial planning, marketing, and legal work.
Globalization is sometimes abbreviated as G11n (which stands for the letter G, then 11 more letters, and then the letter
n). “Globalization is what businesses do.”
Internationalization An engineering process for generalizing a product so that it can handle multiple languages,
scripts and cultural conventions (including currencies, sorting rules, number and date formats, and more) without the
need for redesign or recompilation. This process can be divided into two sets of activities: enablement and localization.
Internationalization is sometimes known as world-readiness, and sometimes abbreviated as I18n. “Internationalization
is what engineers do.”
Localization A process of adapting a product or service to a particular language, culture, and desired local appearance.
Localization is sometimes abbreviated as L10n. “Localization is what translators do.”
Culturization An engineering process for developing or adapting specific features for the unique needs of a culture.
Examples include the Japanese publishing features available in Adobe InDesign, and the Hanko support feature in
Adobe Acrobat.
Some other important internationalization terms can be defined as follows:
Character Set The characters used by a language or by a group of languages. A character set includes national
characters, special characters (such as punctuation marks and mathematical symbols), numeric digits, and computer
control characters.
Collation The sorting of text into a proper order for a given locale.
Last updated 6/6/2012
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