The EUI uses the $ewText.get method, along with key and value pairs in translation.properties, to display text on the interface. When the $ewText.get method contains a particular key, the key's corresponding value is inserted wherever that key appears. This allows the EUI to provide support for multiple languages and facilitate localization. By using these key and value pairs, a full translation of the EUI can be created by simply copying the translation.properties file and translating the value for each key.

Displaying text in the EUI with key and value pairs also creates consistency and allows you to easily make changes. If you need to make a terminology change, it's easier when the text values are contained a single file that each page can reference. For example, if you decide to change the name of a table from Support Cases to Support Tickets, you can go to translation.properties and make that change in one place to propagate the change anywhere the table name appears.

Working with Text

If you want to change text on the EUI, you need to edit the key to which the text corresponds in translation.properties. Although it is possible to enter text directly on an EUI page, we recommend using the key-value pairs in translation.properties for consistency across the EUI templates, as well as to facilitate any future localization efforts.

To change text on the interface:

1. Open translation.properties and search for the text you want to change.

   Key-value pairs are organized by function and then by table.

2. Make the change to the text. Be careful not to remove the equals sign (=) or the text that precedes it.
3. Click Save.
4. Open the corresponding EUI  page and confirm that the text is updated. Remember, if the key to which the text corresponds is used in more than one place, the updated text will appear in the EUI in more than one place too.

Localization with ewText.get and translation.properties

The purpose of the $ewText.get() method and the translation.properties file is to allow for a multilingual environment. This is possible because translation.properties is actually a part of a family of files, with the default setup also including translation_ru.properties and translation_zh.properties. These latter two files hold the text for Russian and Chinese, respectively, and translation.properties holds the text for English.

When the system sets the locale for each user session, the  $ewText.get method checks the session locale and uses that to determine which translation.properties file to use. For instance, consider this key and text value pair from translation.properties:

home.hc.my.link=My Cases

The key is home.hc.my.link, which is followed by an equals sign (=), which is then followed by the text value "My Cases." Whenever $ewText.get("home.hc.my.link") appears in an EUI template, "My Cases" is displayed in the EUI when English is the locale. However, if the locale is Russian or Chinese, the value displayed in the EUI is whatever translation of "My Cases" is in translation_ru.properties or translation_zh.properties, respectively.

Set the Session Locale

There are a few common ways to set the session locale:

• Add lang=XX to the login URL.
• Use the #ew_languages macro in main.php to display a list of available languages for the user.
• Use the #ew_locale macro in main.php to set the locale.

If a locale is not set, the default translation.properties file is used, which is typically English but could in principle be other languages. For more information on  Agiloft's localization-related macros, see EUI Macro Reference.