Internationalization

A simple solution to internationalize texts (and other properties) depending on the current or selected locale is the separation of property values into locale-specific objects. You can specify a resource bundle containing translated values using the following method:

public void setResourceBundle(ResourceBundle resourcebundle)

The following example creates two buttons (yes and no), in the XML file the translated attribute values are marked with the i18n. prefix:

<panel>
  <button text="i18n.yes" />
  <button text="i18n.no" />
</panel>

Note: you can internationalize not only string values, e.g. you can set the state field visible only for the _en_US locales.

The mypackage/myresources_de.properties file includes German texts:

yes=Ja
no=Nein

and mypackage/myresources.properties the English words:

yes=Yes
no=No

The Java source contains the setResourceBundle method call before parsing the XML file:

setResourceBundle(ResourceBundle.getBundle("mypackage.myresources"));
add(parse("mypanel.xml"));

Presumably the application's locale is defined at startup, or only the first (e.g. login) screen have to be reloaded. Changing locale runtime seems to be complicated, you have to update all the localizable data (numbers, dates, messages, or cell values coming from internationalized database views, etc.).