Internationalisation

Internationalisation (a.k.a multiligual) installers are possible by creating language packs for the core functionality of AntInstaller and for your antinstall-config.xml file. Language packs exist for English, German, Spanish and Euskera please feel free to contribute more lanugages.

A tool exists to help create the properties files required to internationalise the installer config files. A script called createLanguagePack.sh is included to run the tool. The tool is very simple but gives you a starting point for internationalising config files. It reads the antinstall-config.xml file in the current directory and asks for a Local string (e.g. es_EU for Euskera) the tool creates two files LanguagePack_es_EU.properties and the default LanguagePack.properties file in the current directory with default vlaues for each required text string.

To use the tool effectively you should perform the following steps.

• Prepare the antinstall-config.xml file as normal and ensure it is valid.
• For comment fields it is a good idea to add a name attribute to the elements to easily identify the fields in the LanguagePack file. All other input elements use the property attribute as the identifyer in the LanguagePack file and should not have name attributes.
  The page element shouyld already have a name attribute since it is a required attribute for page.
• Copy your antinstall-config.xml file temporarily to the root directory where AntInstaller is installed.
• Run the createLanguagePack.sh script.
• Translate all the properties in the generated file for the foreign language.
• Include this file in the /resources/ directory of the installer Jar when creating the installer.
• To test your internationalisation run the installer with the following command line arguments
  -Duser.language=es -Duser.region=EU
  Users with a default Locale already set will not need to take this step.

Maintenance

Once you have internationalised your installer you have increased the maintenance load for any changes. Each element added or changed should be changed in the antinstall-config.xml file and each .properties file and the elements must match up. Some properties are indexed so the ordering of the elements is significant.
For this reason it is a good idea to have a stable installer working before you attempt to internationalise it. It is a good idea to use tools such as SVN, CVS for version management and what ever takes your fancy for diffs.

GUI tool

A fancy GUI tool is also available based on PBR Editor (found at https://prbeditor.dev.java.net) written by eduardj at dev.java.net. The tool has been modified so that an antinstaller-config.xml file can be used as a starting point for the internationalisation. Click on the AntInstaller icon on the tool bar or in the file menu and select the file. The default properties file is created where ever you specify and from that additional language packs can be added using the GUI.