Creating a New Locale

To create a new locale, you must specify the locale as a language preference in the browser, create a new folder in the application project and populate the folder with a lingo.xml file, lingoSchema.xml file, a gate.asp file, and a subdirectory "menu." Note that the appropriate language must be installed on the system. See Setting Up International Versions of the PT Admin application on Window 2000 or Setting Up International Versions of the PT Admin Application on Windows NT 4.0 for details. The following example describes the process for adding Swedish as a locale.

To use Swedish in your arena, first add it as a language preference in Internet Explorer. Follow these steps:

  1. Right-click the Internet Explorer icon on the Desktop and click Properties, or open Internet Explorer, click the Tools menu, and then click Internet Options.
  2. On the General tab, click Languages.
  3. Click Add.
  4. Select Swedish from the list provided, making a note of the abbreviation [sv] in parentheses. This abbreviation will be used to name the Swedish folder.
  5. To change the priority of Swedish in your list of language preferences, click the Move Up or Move Down buttons.

After adding Swedish to the browser, the next task is to create a folder for Swedish in the project.

To create a new folder

  1. Log on as an Administrator or member of the administrators group.
  2. Open Microsoft Visual InterDev. To do this click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Visual Interdev 6.0, and then click the right panel that also reads Microsoft Visual Interdev 6.0.
  3. Visual InterDev will open with the New Projects window appearing in the foreground. Click the Existing tab, and then double-click the name of the project folder for the application (for example, PT).
  4. Double-click the project to launch it.
  5. In the Project Explorer (upper right) pane, right-click the path (Server/Directory) for the project.
  6. Click New Folder and type the name of the folder you are adding (in this case, sv). You must use the language preference abbreviation found in the browser to name your folder. Using a name or nonstandard abbreviation will cause the application to find no match for this language preference and may cause unpredictable results.
  7. Expand the Server/Directory node to view the new folder.
  8. Copy an existing gate.asp file from any other locale folder to this one.
  9. Double-click the gate.asp file to open it.
  10. Review the Session.CodePage setting in the gate.asp file. This should be located on line 5 of the file. If you are using a non-Western language, you will probably need to change this setting. To find the correct settings, see Appendix F in:

    Kano, Nadine. Developing International Software for Windows 95 and Windows NT: A Handbook for International Software Design, Microsoft Press, 1995.

    This book is available on the Web at http://msdn.microsoft.com/isapi/msdnlib.idc?theURL=/library/books/devintl/s24aa.htm

  11. Copy the lingo.xml file from the en-us folder to this one.
  12. Customize the lingo.xml for this locale.
  13. Copy an existing lingoSchema.xml file from any other locale folder to this one. Unless you have changed the formats in the lingo.xml file, there is no need to change the contents of this folder.
  14. Copy the subdirectory "menu" from any other locale folder to this one.
  15. In the emenu.xml file in the menu subdirectory, translate "l_ name" and "itemname" entries into the language of the new locale. For example, if the new locale was German, you would change itemname = "Group" to itemname = "Gruppe."
    Insert the name of the new locale folder into the URL in place of the previous locale folder. For example, if you copied the folder from the Japanese folder, change the URL from "'/ja/gate.asp…." to /de/gate.asp…" Change for all instances of the URL.

    Note Steps 8–15 add the four files needed to "seed" the new locale folder.

  16. Rebuild the application. See Building the New Arena.