Need to localize languages in the Select Language list box

[sdeschenes]

I have localized my installation for Spanish speakers and when my installer is run on a Spanish OS, the "Select Setup Language" is displayed in Spanish, but the list of selectable languages are still in English.

Is there a way to localize the language names in the "Select Setup Language" list box?

[ulrichard]

Hi sdeschenes,

you could try to rename the translation files, and see what happens...

Rgds
Richard

[MichaelNesmith]

If you need to customize that list, you can just build your own custom dialog and hide the built-in language selector dialog. The LANGUAGE pre-defined variable, when set from script, changes the language - the same effect as the built-in language selector dialog has. So feel free to customize as necessary.

[sdeschenes]

When on a Spanish OS, how does the installer know to use the shared strings contained in the translations.Spanish file?

When I localize the languages that are listed, the installer needs to know to use the shared strings in translations.Espanol, instead of translations.Spanish.

[MichaelNesmith]

That's not how the system is designed to work. You won't get anywhere down that road. The proper way is to use my suggestion, which is to build your own custom dialog, and override LANGUAGE from that - rather than showing the built-in dialog and trying to hack it.

[sdeschenes]

I created my own custom dialog, localized it and hid the built-in language selector dialog. But when I run my installer, my custom dialog is always in English.

[MichaelNesmith]

Before showing the custom dialog, you can pre-set the LANGUAGE variable to any value you like, based on what language the operating system is currently operating at.

[MichaelM]

I am using trying to use technique of a custom language selection dialog. I created a drop down list that contains the language selections. The dialog returns the selected language text. Is there a way for the dialog to return a code instead of the language text. For example the local ID of the language instead of the text.

The issue is that the text for each language will be different for each of the translated languages.

[alibaba]

AFAIK the returning text can be edited in the localized .txt files.

[MichaelM]

That is what I am doing now. It just means that the text returned is different for every language. For example the English installer displays English as English. But the French version displays (and returns) English as Anglais. It would be nice to have a value returned that does not change with language.

[alibaba]

That is what I also do not understand. Why are Variables localized in IA?

[mills]

I would like to see an example of what's being talked about.

I tried to create a sample project to test what's being claimed, but couldn't seem to get variables with different values as described.

Perhaps you can take a look at my sample and edit it to exhibit these translated variables.

[alibaba]

What I mean is that variables appear in the localization txt files. IMHO this is not necessary and could cause errors if you give the text files to a translation office. Because also variables like "TRUE", "FALSE" and Language Identifiers will be translated and setup will not work because maybe the check uses a translated string but the set variable was not translated or the other way round.
For instance in InstallShield there are no variables translated.

My wish for next version would be IA with the translation system from InstallShield, because this was much more easy to handle.