During translation many strings in a project will expand in length due to the difference between the source and target languages. For example, it's normal to expect Japanese text to be at least 30% longer than English text. This text expansion has a significant effect on the layout of dialog panels as each text object will need to be manually resized to accommodate the length of the translation. This can be a costly and time-consuming task, frequently carried out by a professional localization engineer.

However, Alchemy CATALYST avoids this task and can re-size and re-shape dialog panels to accommodate new translations.  The Alchemy Layout Manager is an advanced technology that scans the original layout of a dialog panel and then calculates the localized layout based on the new translations.

To use Layout Manager to re-size dialog panels:

  1. Select a dialog from your project and display it in the WYSIWYG editor.

  2. Using the Layout Manager toolbar, click the image20.gif button. This will automatically re-size every control and the dialog panel itself to accommodate your new translations.

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Alchemy Layout Manager is very sophisticated and can handle complex dialog panels containing overlapping and clipped controls. It's unique algorithm ensures that the spatial relationships between controls in the original source language is maintained in the localised versions. This ensures that generated layouts are consistent with the original software look and feel.