Editor preferences and localized settings

If you want to share the files that are associated with message flow and message set development, you must ensure that the files and the content of these files are compatible and can be shared by users working on different systems and in different locales.

You can share the following files:

  • Message flow definition files (.msgflow)
  • ESQL files (.esql)
  • Mappings files (.msgmap)
  • Message set files (.mset)
  • Message files (.mxsd and .xsd)
  • Message category files (.category)

Restrict the names of these files to a specific set that all your users can understand, for example the characters in the US English code page (a to z, A to Z, 0 to 9, plus special characters underscore and hyphen). This is not a restriction, nor is it enforced, but the users must be able to use each others resources without confusion or error.

The contents of all files listed above, with the exception of ESQL files, are stored in UTF-8, and are therefore common, regardless of individual user settings.

The contents of the ESQL files, which users can edit directly, are governed by the editor preference settings that you specify in the workbench:

  1. Click Window > Preferences.
  2. Expand the Workbench item on the left. Click Editors. Within "Text file encoding", select the code page that you want content to be stored in:
    1. If you select Default, this represents the default code page for the locale in which you are currently working.
    2. If you select Other, you can choose one from the list of available code pages.

If you expect users to share ESQL files, by using either shared drives across a LAN, or a shared repository such as CVS, you must ensure that all users set the editor preference to be the same value. This allows each user to work in their current locale, but be able to access and work with files created by any other user. For example, select UTF-8 to ensure consistent ESQL file content that is accessible by all users regardless of current locale.