Creating Localized Versions of Custom Node Dialogs

To localize dialog strings

You must create a copy of the properties file associated with the custom node dialog for each language that you plan to deploy. The properties file contains all of the localizable strings associated with the node dialog.

Extract the custom node dialog file (.cfe) from the extension by selecting the file in the Extension Properties dialog (within the Custom Dialog Builder for Extensions) and clicking Extract. Then, extract the contents of the .cfe file. A .cfe file is simply a .zip file. The extracted contents of a .cfe file includes a properties file for each supported language, where the name of the file for a particular language is given by <Dialog Name>_<language identifier>.properties (see language identifiers in the table that follows).

1. Open each properties file, that you plan to translate, with a text editor that supports UTF-8, such as Notepad on Windows. Modify the values associated with any properties that need to be localized, but do not modify the names of the properties. Properties associated with a specific control are prefixed with the identifier for the control. For example, the ToolTip property for a control with the identifier options_button is options_button_tooltip_LABEL. Title properties are simply named <identifier>_LABEL, as in options_button_LABEL.
2. Add the localized versions of the properties files back to the custom node dialog file (.cfe) from the Localization settings on the Optional tab of the Extension Properties dialog. For more information, see the topic Optional properties of extensions.

When the node dialog is launched, IBM SPSS Modeler searches for a properties file whose language identifier matches the current language, as specified by the Language drop-down on the General tab in the Options dialog box. If no such properties file is found, the default file <Dialog Name>.properties is used.

To localize the help file

1. Make a copy of the help file associated with the custom node dialog and localize the text for the language you want.
2. Rename the copy to <Help File>_<language identifier>.htm, using the language identifiers in the table below. For example, if the help file is myhelp.htm and you want to create a German version of the file, then the localized help file should be named myhelp_de.htm.

Store all localized versions of the help file in the same directory as the non-localized version. When you add the non-localized help file from the Help File property of Dialog Properties, the localized versions are automatically added to the node dialog.

If there are supplementary files such as image files that also need to be localized, then you must manually modify the appropriate paths in the main help file to point to the localized versions. Supplementary files, including localized versions, must be manually added to the custom node dialog (.cfe) file. See the previous section titled "To localize dialog strings" for information about accessing and manually modifying custom node dialog files.

When the node dialog is launched, IBM SPSS Modeler searches for a help file whose language identifier matches the current language, as specified by the Language drop-down on the General tab in the Options dialog box. If no such help file is found, the help file specified for the node dialog (the file specified in the Help File property of Dialog Properties) is used.