Selecting and changing the language

 

Changing the default portal language

After the installation you can change the default language of the portal. To do this, use the Global Settings portlet. Select Administration, Portal settings, Global Settings. From the pull down list, select the desired default language for the portal. This can be, for example, en for English. See Language support for a list of the languages supported by the portal.

The value for the default portal language is stored in the file /wp_root/shared/app/config/services/LocalizerService.properties. For details about the language settings see Localizer Service. That section also tells you how to disable right-to-left (RTL) rendering for a bidirectional language.

For details on how to add a new language or to remove support for a language see Supporting a new language.

 

Portlets

A portlet can support one or more locales. All portlets must have their own default language specified in the deployment descriptor. Otherwise the portlet cannot be installed.

 

Changing titles for pages

You can edit titles for pages in the portlet for Managing Pages using the configure option for the locale specific settings. Select Administration, Portal User Interface, Manage pages. Click the Edit page properties icon, expand the Advanced options, and select the option for setting page titles and descriptions. You can enter a different title for each available language.

 

Language selection by the user

The user can select the preferred language for rendering portal content during the enrollment process. The user can select from a list of available languages. If desired, the user can later change the selected language in the self care portlet by selecting Edit my profile. The selection list shown to the user for choosing a language shows all available portal languages. The list corresponds to the languages in the file /wp_root/shared/app/config/language.properties.

Note that the user's language selection does not become effective until after the user has logged in.

 

Language determined by the portal

The portal determines the language for rendering the portal content by a search process along the following sequence at login time:

  1. If the user has logged in, the portal displays in the preferred language selected by the user.

  2. If no preferred user language can be found, the portal looks for the language defined in the user's browser. If the portal supports that language, it displays the content in that language. If the browser has more than one language defined, the portal uses the first language in the list to display the content.

  3. If no browser language can be found, for example if the browser used does not send a language, the portal resorts to its own default language.

  4. If the user has a portlet that does not support the language that was determined by the previous steps, that portlet is shown in its own default language.

The sequence listed above describes the language selection process that is applied for each user at logon time. For pages viewed by anonymous users only the last three steps for determining the language apply. This applies, for example, before login and after log off.

The language determined by this selection process is applied to the complete portal. If the portal or one component does not find the appropriate resources for the language as selected by this sequence, it tries to find the resources in a similar language. For example, if the determined language was US English (en_US), the next closest option is English (en). The language is determined as follows:

This search sequence applies to all portal components individually down to portlets. For example, if a portlet does not support the language selected by the portal, it is shown in default language of the portlet. This way, the portal can show individual portlets in different languages.

If a page does not support any of the languages determined by the steps above, then the object ID of the page is displayed in the navigation rather than its title. Such an object ID can be, for example, 7_0_5T .

 

Dynamically changing the language during the session

If you want your users to be able to change the language during the session, you can use the following command provided by WebSphere Portal: 

<wps:url command="ChangeLanguage">
   <wps:urlParam name="locale" value="language"/>
</wps:url>

where language  is the required language, such as en, de, or fr. All supported portal languages are listed in the file wp_root/shared/app/config/language.properties . For users to be able to dynamically change the language for the session, add a link to the portal theme with the following text and link reference:

Users can then click this link to change to the language specified by the locale parameter with the command. If you want to make more than one language available to users, you create a separate link for each language.

Example: To create links for English and German, add the lines shown in the following example to the file was_root/installedApps/node_name/wps.ear/wps.war/themes/html/PlaceBarInclude.jsp : 

<!-- Navigation -->
<td>
...
</td>


<!-- add these lines -->
<td>
<a href="<wps:url command="ChangeLanguage"><wps:urlParam name="locale" 
     value="en"/></wps:url>">English</a>
<a href="<wps:url command="ChangeLanguage"><wps:urlParam name="locale" 
     value="de"/></wps:url>">Deutsch</a>
</td>


<!-- Favorites -->
...

Note: The changed setting applies only for the duration of the current session. When the user logs out and back in again, the portal applies the default language as determined by the four steps described under Language determined by the portal.

See also