Localization

If the option to Translate System Messages & Prompts is enabled, the end user is able to select, as a personal preference, which language in which he wants to operate. There are three fundamental areas where localized messages can be entered and maintained:

  • The user interface of ExtraView, including all system messages and prompts. Typically, these messages are the same for all installations of ExtraView. For example, this includes informative and error messages that come from the ExtraView software.
  • The metadata values provided by the administrator, which are local to the installation. For example, if the administrator creates titles for each status value used across his organization in English, and he wants to provide the localized equivalents in French, German and Japanese, he can insert the appropriate translations.
  • The metadata values provided by users, which are local to the installation. For example, if a user creates a report title used across his organization in English, and he wants to provide the localized equivalents in French, German and Japanese, he or another user may insert the appropriate translations.

These areas of localization are independent, and can be used in a mutually exclusive fashion.
Localized versions of images can also be installed on the server. Please see the section on Initial Setup & Configuration for details.

Note: If a particular term or message is not translated into a specific language, ExtraView will choose to display the item with the default locale (normally US English). This can be used with advantage, for example, to provide a UK English localization, with the minimum of effort, only translating messages and metadata that have different spellings between the two languages.

Note: No matter what setting is used for a user’s language preference, data can be entered and updated in any language, assuming the user’s character set and browser provide the necessary support. For this reason, ExtraView recommends that the default character set used in the installation of an Oracle database be set at UTF-8, and that for a Microsoft SQL Server database, the character should be UCS-2.

Note: Before performing any localization, you should check your browser is set to use the UTF-8 character set. Failure to do this may result in corrupting previously saved messages that contain accented or double-byte characters. If you are not sure whether your browser is correctly configured, make sure you take a backup of your database before you start.

Testing is extremely important as part of localizing ExtraView metadata and prompts into any language. Please thoroughly check your work before deploying into a production environment.