Localization of the User Interface

Oxygen XML Developer comes with a user interface available in English, French, German, Japanese, Dutch, and Italian. If you want to use Oxygen XML Developer in other language you have to translate all the messages and labels available in the user interface (menu action names, button names, check box texts, view titles, error messages, status bar messages, etc.) and provide a text file with all the translated messages in the form of a Java properties file. Such a file contains message key - translated message pairs displayed in the user interface.

In order to add a new language for the user interface, follow this procedure. For simplicity sake, it is assumed that you are translating the user interface in Spanish, and you are using a standard oXygen XML Windows distribution.

  1. Identify the ISO code for the new language you wish to translate the interface. In this example the language code is es_ES.
  2. Extract the bundled English language properties file from oxygen.jar:
    1. Open a command prompt window.
    2. Change directory (create it if necessary) to a folder where you have write permissions:
      cd C:\Users\dan
      C:\Users\dan>mkdir localization
      C:\Users\dan>cd localization
    3. Identify the Oxygen XML Developer XML installation directory (typically found in the default installation location on Windows C:\Program Files), and extract the following files from oxygenDeveloper.jar:
      C:\Users\dan\localization>jar -xf "C:\Program Files (x86)\Oxygen XML Developer\lib\oxygenAuthor.jar" languageList.properties C:\Users\dan\localization>jar -xf "C:\Program Files (x86)\Oxygen XML Developer\lib\oxygenDeveloper.jar" Messages_en_US.properties
  3. Register the new language. The file languageList.properties contains the list of all the languages that Oxygen XML Developer can use for its user interface. Open it with a text editor and add the entry that corresponds to the new language. You can also choose to remove the unneeded languages.
    ....
    French=fr_FR
    English=en_US
    Spanish=es_ES
    ....
  4. Translate the messages file:
    1. The file Messages_en_US.properties contains the English translation. You can use it as a template for the new language. Rename it to match the new language code.
      C:\Users\dan\localization>move Messages_en_US.properties Messages_es_ES.properties 
    2. Using a properties editor, like the one found here: http://propedit.sourceforge.jp/index_en.html, you can start customizing the text.
      For instance, the entry:
      File_New=New
      can be changed to:
      File_New=Crear un nuevo archivo
  5. Deploy the translation:
    1. Archive both languageList.properties and Messages_es_ES.properties into a jar file, with the name of the language code. In this case the name is es_ES.jar:
      C:\Users\dan\localization>jar -cf es_ES.jar Messages_es_ES.properties languageList.properties
    2. Copy the created jar file into the Oxygen XML Developer installation folder, lib\endorsed subfolder (use a command prompt window with elevated rights if you are using Windows Vista or later).
      C:\Users\dan\localization>mkdir "C:\Program Files (x86)\Oxygen XML Developer\lib\endorsed" C:\Users\dan\localization>copy es_ES.jar "C:\Program Files (x86)\Oxygen XML Developer\lib\endorsed"
  6. Test the translation.
    1. Start Oxygen XML Developer
    2. From the Global options panel, change the language using the Language combo box. Your new language is listed here.
    3. Restart Oxygen XML Developer . Check that the translated messages are displayed in the interface.
Note:

Sometimes it is possible to miss the complete meaning of a message from the translation file. If you are in doubt, contact the Oxygen XML Developer support team for further details.

Note: In case you want to distribute to the end users a localized version of the Oxygen XML Developer XML, add to the distribution package the lib/endorsed directory, containing the new translation.