Internationalization and localization
Internationalization and localization help you reach a wider audience by making your application available to users who speak different languages. Localization is the process of translating application text and converting locale-specific components, and internationalization is a general design principle that makes software more convenient to localize.
Pega Platform applications are designed to support multiple language versions and provide a user-friendly localization process that uses wizards, existing browser settings, and standard Pega rulesets. App Studio and user portals that you generate in the application all support localization. However, Dev Studio does not support full localization and might display untranslated content.
Wizards
Pega Platform includes two wizards that simplify the process of identifying, translating, and creating the rules that support localization.
- Localization wizard
- Helps you identify text elements that need translation, and loads the elements into an Excel spreadsheet. A translator working offline with Excel can provide first-pass translations for these terms, even without being familiar with Pega Platform.
- Localization inspector
- Provides translators with tools to preview a localized application in context, and revise or extend the translations. The localization inspector is available to users who have pxFieldValueInspector privileges.
Locale
Your locale determines the language settings of your application. Pega Platform determines the initial locale of the operator by first looking at the locale selected in the current browser. If the operator's profile specifies a locale other than the locale set for the browser, Pega Platform uses the profile locale. You can override the locale setting temporarily by calling the PublicAPI method setLocale(). The new locale setting is then valid until the user session ends or until a later call to the setLocale() method. If the application does not contain a ruleset for the locale that you select, the UI displays the default language (English).
Pega Platform uses the Unicode standards for date and time patterns. Implementation of daylight saving time support depends on the Java Virtual Machine version that supports your system. For a list of locales in Oracle's Java Development Kit, see the Oracle documentation.
East Asian language support
Pega Platform supports the Microsoft Windows Input Method Editor (IME), which helps users enter characters in four different East Asian languages (simplified and traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) by using the standard keyboard. For more information, see Installing and Using Input Method Editors on the Microsoft website.
Character sets
Pega Platform and the PegaRULES database support the UTF-8 or UTF-16 Unicode character sets.
- Converting your UI for right-to-left languages
Meet the needs of audiences who use languages such as Arabic or Urdu by adapting your user interface to accommodate the right-to-left (RTL) text direction. By localizing your application into RTL languages, you expand your user base and provide native RTL language speakers with an interface that is friendly and intuitive.
Previous topic Localizing your application Next topic Converting your UI for right-to-left languages