Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
Translation Manager

> ## Creating message statements

> You should be aware that some message statements might be difficult to translate. For example, message statements that contain compound phrases that follow the noun-verb-object rules of English do not translate well into languages that follow different grammatical rules. Sometimes developers create message statements with embedded `SKIP` statements to align the message statement evenly on the screen. While this hard-coded alignment might look attractive in the source language, it might look awkward when you translate the message into another language.

> For example, the following code contains three text phrases that most likely will be translated out of context of one another:

> - “The filename you entered,”

> - “, is”

> - “invalid under DOS.”

>     DEFINE VARIABLE fname AS CHAR.
>     MESSAGE "The filename you entered," + fname + ", is"
>         SKIP "invalid under DOS."
>     VIEW-AS ALERT-BOX WARNING.

> When you translate these text phrases, the message will probably wrap awkwardly. To solve this problem, ask developers to avoid `SKIP` statements and to create message statements that do not split into text phrases that follow the grammar rules of a particular language. For example, in place of the above code, use one of the following code segments to display a similar message:

>     DEFINE VARIABLE fname AS CHAR.
>     MESSAGE fname SKIP(1) "is invalid under DOS. Please try again."
>     VIEW-AS ALERT-BOX WARNING.

>     DEFINE VARIABLE fname AS CHAR.
>     MESSAGE SUBSTITUTE (The filename you entered, &1, is invalid
>         under DOS.", fname).
>     VIEW-AS ALERT-BOX WARNING.

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