Creating localization resources

Localization resources for applications are contained in localization resource bundles, which are a set of files that define key-value pairs for all the strings that are displayed in the application for the purposes of translation. For each supported language, a file contains translated values for all of the keys.

About this task

Tip: A localization resource bundle that is defined and used in an application can "hide" other resource bundles that are defined and used in dependent toolkits if the resource bundles use the same name. To avoid behavior inconsistencies, use unique localization resource bundle names across the dependent toolkits and nested dependent toolkits. When the resource bundles have the same name, it cannot be determined which resource bundle is used by the app at run time.

Procedure

Open your application in the low-code designer.
In the library, click the plus sign next to User Interface and select Localization Resource.
Provide a name for your new resource bundle and click Finish.
For each translatable string in your application, enter a translation key and a default value for that key. The default value is the value that is displayed if no translation is available.
After you have defined all of your translation keys, you can export the resource bundle for translation. Click Export to export the existing set of keys to a .zip file to which you will add the corresponding translated properties files.
Manually create a new properties file for each language locale that you will translate your user interface into. For each language that you want your application to support, create a copy of the exported properties file, renaming it according to the language that it will be supporting. For example, if your default properties file is my_application.properties and you want your application to support Japanese, create a copy of the file called my_application_ja.properties.
Have each of the files translated into the corresponding languages.
Note: The files must meet the following requirements:
- The key-value pairs must conform to the format required by the Java™ specification. For more information, see https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/Properties.html#load(java.io.InputStream) .
- Characters that cannot be directly represented in this encoding must be escaped by using Unicode escapes as defined in the Java Specification. For example,for the German character Umlaut you would use the unicode escape sequence \u00dc as the value in your key-value pair. There are tools you can use to automate the conversion of characters. For example, native2ascii - Native-to-ASCII Converter .
Zip your properties files into a single .zip file.
To import your resource bundle into your application, open the localization resource file in the designer and click Import.
Browse to your updated .zip file to select it and click Finish.
If you select to overwrite the values for all existing keys, then for any given language, key values in the imported files that do not match the existing key values will replace the existing values. Any new keys are added to the existing set of keys in the existing localization resource.

If there are any missing keys in any of the translated files, warnings are displayed. Click each of the languages that are flagged with a warning to see which key translations are missing. If you do not supply translations for these keys, the default value is displayed in any interfaces that reference this key.

What to do next

After you have created your localization resources, you can associate them with your views or apps by going to the Variables tab.