Internationalize your application

For applications that are used in multiple regions around the world, corresponding user interfaces need to support multiple locales and time zones. WAS supports the maintenance and deployment of centralized message catalogs for the output of properly formatted, language-specific (localized) interface strings.

Perform the following steps to set up internationalization in your application:

1. Identify localizable text
   This topic explains how to identify the elements of your application that are potential candidates for internationalization.

2. Create message catalogs
   This topic explains how to create message catalogs. Message catalogs are necessary for locales that will be supported by your application.

3. Compose language-specific strings
   This topic explains how to write language-specific strings, which must be composed in your application code for output.

4. Assemble your application code
   Your application code must be assembled as one or more application components before you can prepare for and deploy your application into the WAS environment.

5. Prepare the localizable-text package for deployment
   To prepare the localizable-text package for deployment with your localized application, create a deployment JAR file.

6. Assemble modules into a J2EE application
   The application modules and the deployment JAR must be assembled into a J2EE application before the application can be deployed.

7. Deploy and manage the application
   After you develop your internationalized application and assemble it for deployment into WAS, you can use the WAS administrative console to install application files on the server and manage the activity of deployed applications. This topic is located in Administration.