This tutorial is about localizing your Nib(.xib) files inside your iPhone application. I will write another tutorial to localized your application from your Xcode code as well. You might read few tutorials on Localization in iPhone but I am going to write for those who try those and didnt get success. So this tutorial is for one of my friend Waqas Qureshi.If you are not interested to read about theory please skip following two paragraphs.

What is Localization in iPhone? Translate your application in multiple languages. In simple words you want that your application will be easily understandable in different languages. So you want to localized your application in French/German or any other language. iPhone support more then 22 languages and I hope in SDK 3.0 it will support more then that. Localization is a very important feature which you can easily achieve in iPhone.

What are the steps? iPhone has a robust localization architecture that let you easily translate your application in to multiple languages. So its easy if you start your application with that architecture because it will be hard for you to convert your application localized at the end. So please make sure if you want to have this feature in your application, build your application accordingly and do not put this feature in phase two on your application.

Please follow the following steps to make your application localized. In this tutorial I will localized application in French. Output of this project will look like this for two languages (English and French)

1. Create a new project in Xcode and name it LocalizediPhone (I place it in Desktop)

2. Open LocalizediPhoneAppDelegate.m file in Xcode and change the applicationDidFinishLaunching method, such that it shows your TitleBar.

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {
UINavigationController *navController = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:viewController];
// Override point for customization after app launch
[window addSubview:navController.view];
[window makeKeyAndVisible];
}

3. Now open LocalizediPhoneViewController.m file and in viewDidLoad function write this code

- (void)viewDidLoad {
NSLocale *locale = [NSLocale currentLocale];
NSString *titleOFApplication = [locale displayNameForKey:NSLocaleIdentifier value:[locale localeIdentifier]];
self.title = titleOFApplication;
[super viewDidLoad];
}

4. Now run the application and you will see English in Title

5. Now change the language of your iPhone. Close this application(by pressing home button in iPhone) and open Settings application. Move to General > International > Region Format, and select French. Now click on Back button (International). Now selected Language row in International view and change your language to French. Press Done button and your iPhone will change the language.

6. Now in Xcode run the application again and you will see the change in Title.

7. Now it times to change in Xib Files. Open LocalizediPhoneViewController.xib from your Xcode and place 4 labels inside View.

8. Close the Xib file (LocalizediPhoneViewController.xib) and in Xcode “Group and files” panel expand “NIB Files”. Right click on it (LocalizediPhoneViewController.xib) and select “Get Info”

9. Now select “General” tab and in bottom left click “Make File Localizable”, you will be navigate to “Target”. Close this Info window and you will see under “NIB Files” an expander under “LocalizediPhoneViewController.xib” file. You will see “English” file. Right click on it and select “Reveal in Finder”. You will see a new folder inside your code project (English.lproj)

[Note: Nothing has been changed so far, you can run your application and it will behave the same way. Now it times to add French in your application. If it does not, do not get panic and continue reading below]

10. Now inside your Xcode project, right click on LocalizediPhoneViewController.xib file and select “Get Info”. Select “General” tab and click on “Add Localization” in bottom left. In popup type “fr” without quotes and press “Add button”. You will see fr will be added in Info window. Close this window and you will see “fr”(xib) file is added under English(xib) file. If you right click on “fr”(xib) file and select “Reveal in Finder”. You will see a new folder in your code project (fr.lproj)

11. Open “fr”(xib) file in interface builder. Change the text of labels in to French language(i use google translation).

Now everything is setup for this tutorial. If you are using iPhone simulator then select from menu “iPhone Simulator” and select “Reset content and settings”. It will make your iPhone simulator language to English. Open Settings application in iPhone, and move to “General”> “International”. Your “Region format” is “United States” and Language is “English”. (Your Setting screen should look like this.)

Open Xcode and run your application, it will be shown like this

[Note: If it does not show the changes we made. Do not worry about this, iPhone or iPhone simulator stored your application information in cache. So you have to remove your application from iPhone/iPhone simulator first. Then move to ~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/ ( here ~ means your home directory) and delete "User" folder. Clean your Xcode project by pressing Cmd+ Shift+K (or in menu go to "Build" > "Clean". Run the application again and it will show you the changes]

Now we want to see how its look like in French language. Repeat point 5 again and launch the application in Xcode. It will shown like this

[Note: If it still shown the English xib file please repeat the above note (i.e deleting the application from iPhone, cleaning your Xcode project and delete the User folder form ~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/).]

You can grab the code from here. Also you can get the complete list of country codes http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes.html (i.e for Itly, German and other languages)
[Update: check out part 2 of localization]

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