Languages

The PortableApps.com Launcher supports automatic language switching of applications when launched from the PortableApps.com Platform, by a series of environment variables. This document discusses how to go about getting language setting working for your application, and some quirks of the system.

The environment variables

Language variables covers the default variables which are available. If those environment variables are enough for use in a [FileWriteN] section, then you shouldn’t need to go beyond here.

Setting a custom language environment variable

Constructing a custom language environment variable is done with the [Language] and [LanguageStrings] sections, and the final result is placed in %PAL:LanguageCustom%. Here is the order in which things happen.

1. [Language]:Base is read and environment variables are parsed (this will normally be other language variables).
2. The key defined by that value is looked up in the section [LanguageStrings] (into a variable we’ll call value).
3. If that key did not exist (and so value is undefined), then [Language]:Default is read (with environment variable parsing) into value if it exists; if it doesn’t exist then [Language]:Base (with environment variables parsed; the value we looked up in [LanguageStrings] before) is used.
4. %PAL:LanguageCustom% is set to value.
5. Now we come to checking if a file exists. This is handy when you have a whole table of, for example, glibc-compliant names, but not all possible files are there and if an invalid language is specified the application will cause problems. It becomes convenient to check if a certain file exists, and if it doesn’t, reverting to a default value.
6. If [Language]:CheckIfExists is not set, the final value is value (and this process stops). Otherwise, it is read and environment variables are parsed.
7. That file is checked for existence: for example, you could have a value of %PAL:AppDir%\AppName\locales\%PAL:LanguageCustom%.mo. You should have %PAL:LanguageCustom% at least once in this value (otherwise there wouldn’t seem much point in it).
8. If this file does not exist, then [Language]:DefaultIfNotExists is read, environment variables parsed in it, and set as the value for %PAL:LanguageCustom%.

Note: normally you will want to use only one of [Language]:Default and [Language]:DefaultIfNotExists.

Here is a diagram of how it works:

When the portable application is not launched from the PortableApps.com Platform, to maintain the user’s language setting, the custom language should be read from a file with the aid of the [LanguageFile] section, if this is possible.

Other ways

If you really can’t make language switching work as you need it to, you can write a custom segment to do what you need. Remember then that you will need to compile this new code with the PortableApps.com Launcher Generator. Also please try contacting Chris Morgan as any code you write or a new language situation may be useful for putting into the PortableApps.com Launcher itself.

Language variable values

Here is a table of language variables and the values they are given. (All the variables in this table have PortableApps.com prefixed to them, see Language variables for the full names.)

Note: PortableApps.comLocaleName will be in uppercase for users of the PortableApps.com Platform 2.0 Beta 5 and earlier. If this matters, you may need to use the [LanguageStrings] section.

LocaleName	LanguageCode	LocaleCode2	LocaleCode3	Localeglibc	LocaleID	LocaleWinName
Afrikaans	af	af	afr	af	1078	LANG_AFRIKAANS
Albanian	sq	sq	sqi	sq	1052	LANG_ALBANIAN
Arabic	ar-sa	ar	ara	ar	1025	LANG_ARABIC
Basque	eu	eu	eus	eu	1069	LANG_BASQUE
Belarussian	be	be	bel	be	1059	LANG_BELARUSSIAN
Bulgarian	bg	bg	bul	bg	1026	LANG_BULGARIAN
Catalan	ca	ca	cat	ca	1027	LANG_CATALAN
SimpChinese	zh-cn	zh	zho	zh_CN	2052	LANG_SIMPCHINESE
TradChinese	zh-tw	zh	zho	zh_TW	1028	LANG_TRADCHINESE
Croatian	hr	hr	hrv	hr	1050	LANG_CROATIAN
Czech	cs	cs	ces	cs	1029	LANG_CZECH
Danish	da	da	dan	da	1030	LANG_DANISH
Dutch	nl	nl	nld	nl	1043	LANG_DUTCH
English	en	en	eng	en_US	1033	LANG_ENGLISH
Estonian	et	et	est	et	1061	LANG_ESTONIAN
Farsi	fa	fa	fas	fa	1065	LANG_FARSI
Filipino	tl	tl	fil	tl	1124	LANG_FILIPINO
Finnish	fi	fi	fin	fi	1035	LANG_FINNISH
French	fr	fr	fra	fr	1036	LANG_FRENCH
Galician	gl	gl	glg	gl	1110	LANG_GALICIAN
German	de	de	ger	de	1031	LANG_GERMAN
Greek	el	el	ell	el	1032	LANG_GREEK
Hebrew	he	he	heb	he	1037	LANG_HEBREW
Hungarian	hu	hu	hun	hu	1038	LANG_HUNGARIAN
Indonesian	id	id	ina	id	1057	LANG_INDONESIAN
Irish	ga	ga	gle	ga	2108	LANG_IRISH
Italian	it	it	ita	it	1040	LANG_ITALIAN
Japanese	ja	ja	jpn	ja	1041	LANG_JAPANESE
Korean	ko	ko	kor	ko	1042	LANG_KOREAN
Latvian	lv	lv	lav	lv	1062	LANG_LATVIAN
Lithuanian	lt	lt	lit	lt	1063	LANG_LITHUANIAN
Luxembourgish	lb	lb	ltz	lb	1033	LANG_LUXEMBOURGISH
Macedonian	mk	mk	mkd	mk	1071	LANG_MACEDONIAN
Malay	ms	ms	msa	ms	1086	LANG_MALAY
Norwegian	no	no	nor	nb	1044	LANG_NORWEGIAN
Polish	pl	pl	pol	pl	1045	LANG_POLISH
Portuguese	pt	pt	por	pt	2070	LANG_PORTUGUESE
PortugueseBR	pt-br	pt	por	pt_BR	1046	LANG_PORTUGUESEBR
Romanian	ro	ro	ron	ro	1048	LANG_ROMANIAN
Russian	ru	ru	rus	ru	1049	LANG_RUSSIAN
Serbian	sr	sr	srp	sr_RS	3098	LANG_SERBIAN
SerbianLatin	sr	sr	srp	sr	2074	LANG_SERBIANLATIN
Slovak	sk	sk	slk	sk	1051	LANG_SLOVAK
Slovenian	sl	sl	slv	sl	1060	LANG_SLOVENIAN
Spanish	es	es	spa	es	1034	LANG_SPANISH
SpanishInternational	es-mx	es	spa	es	3082	LANG_SPANISHINTERNATIONAL
Sundanese	su	su	sun	su	9999	LANG_SUNDANESE
Swedish	sv	sv	swe	sv	1053	LANG_SWEDISH
Thai	th	th	tha	th	1054	LANG_THAI
Turkish	tr	tr	tur	tr	1055	LANG_TURKISH
Ukrainian	uk	uk	ukr	uk	1058	LANG_UKRAINIAN
Vietnamese	vi	vi	vie	vi	1066	LANG_VIETNAMESE