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Using Language Definitions

Description

Language definitions define the text to display in Language Tags for the active language.

Discussion

You can tag any text in the Component definition so that it becomes replaceable, depending on the selected language.

To tag text, you enclose it in <a5:r> and </a5:r> tags. For example, you might tag the heading for the Lastname column as:

<a5:r>Lastname</a5:r>
Do not use international characters in the text enclosed in language codes. You can use international characters in the replacement strings.

You can define as many language definitions as you want in the Language Definitions dialog.

images/languageDefinitionsDialog.png

Each language definition is a set of name=value pairs that do not include line breaks. For example, assume you have tagged the following strings in your Component definition:

<a5:r>First Name</a5:r>
<a5:r>Last Name</a5:r>
<a5:r>City</a5:r>

Your language definition for the <Default> language might be:

First Name=First Name
Last Name=Last Name
City=City

The language definition for French might be:

First Name=Prénom
Last Name=Nom de Famille
City=Ville

Using Expressions in the Replacement Strings

You can use expressions in the replacement strings by prefixing the expression with 'expn:'. For example, in the case of a Grid component, the language definition below uses expressions that reference a session variable and a variables that might have been defined in the OnGridInitialize event.

First Name=Prénom
Last Name=Nom de Famille
City=Ville
Company=expn:session.companyName
WelcomeMessage=expn:rtc._myvariables.welcomeMessage

Setting the Active Language

If you don't specify an active language, the <Default> language is assumed. To set the active language, you set the 'ActiveLanguage' property. You can set this property in the 'Override Settings' section in the .A5W page that loads the Grid, or in the Grid component's OnGridInitialize event.

For example, to set the ActiveLanguage in the OnGridInitialize event:

e.tmpl.ActiveLanguage = "French"

A second way to set the active language is by using the special protected session variable, session.__protected__activeLanguage. For example:

session.__protected__activeLanguage = "French"

If you set both the session.__protected__activeLanguage and the 'ActiveLanguage' property in Override Settings or OnGridInitialize, the session.__protected__activeLanguage property is honored.

Using External Language Definitions

You can pass in an external language definition to the Grid at run-time by setting the 'languageDefinition' property in Override Settings or the OnGridInitialize event. If you pass in an external language definition which defines a replacement value that is also defined in the language definition that is defined in the Grid itself, the external language definition will be used.

The example below shows how to define an external language definition. Note that 'Surname' and 'Postal Code' are literal values and =date() is an Xbasic expression.

tmpl.languageDefinition =<<%txt%
<a5:r>lastname</a5:r>="Surname"
<a5:r>zip</a5:r>="Postal Code"
<a5:r>date</a5:r>=date()
%txt%

Important Note About using Language Tags in Javascript Code

If you use language tags in Javascript code, the replacement string must be properly escaped in the definition file. For example:

Cancel=No, don\'t save image

URL Encoding Values

In some cases, you will want a language tag to return a URL encoded value. You do this by enclosing the value in a special tag -- urlEncode{{your text here}}. For example:

prompt=urlEncode{{Select the file to upload}}