How to add additional language support to Citrix Web Interface 4.0

Written on May 31 2005 Filed under: Citrix XenApp, Tip, Citrix Web Interface, Citrix 18,624 views, 25 comments

by Ilja Godau

Being located in Denmark, it’s often necessary to implement systems in the Danish language. Unfortunately not too many programs are available in Danish, including Citrix’s Web Interface 4.0 (WI4).

Luckily for us, it’s easy to add additional languages to WI4. In this article, I’ll show you how easy it is to add Danish or any other new language to WI. All that’s required is a little file editing and some translation skills.

All of the WI4 language files are located on the WI4 server in the "\Program Files\Citrix\Web Interface\4.0\languages" folder.

As you can see from the picture above, all you have to do is create a new set of language files from the existing ones. In this picture, "Danish (DK)" has been added. The *.lang files contain the definition of the languages. For example, the "dk.lang" file is a text file that contains the definition of the language in the following format:

FriendlyName=Dansk (Danish)

From here it’s just some hard work to get your own files translated. The main strings are located in "common_strings_languageID.properties" and "metaframe_strings_languageID.properties" files. An example of a Danish translation from "common_strings_DK.properties" could be:

ForMetaFrame=til MetaFrame
OK=OK
VersionTitle=Citrix Presentation Server
Help=Hjælp
SelectConnectionSpeed=Forbindelses hastighed:
Custom=Tilpasset
HighBandwidth=Høj - Kabel/DSL/LAN
MediumHighBandwidth=Mellem høj - Modem (>33K)
MediumBandwidth=Mellem - Modem (<=33K)
LowBandwidth=Lav - GPRS/Trådløs
ReconnectTo=Genforbinder til:
DisconnectedApplicationsOnly=Afbrudte programmer
AllApplications=Alle programmer
LogIn=Log på
Welcome=Velkommen
PleaseLogin=Venligst log på
MessageCenter=Meddelelses Center
MessageCenter1=Meddelelses centret viser informationer og eventuelle fejl beskeder.
Settings=Indstillinger
Refresh=Opfrisk
Error=FEJL

The result is as follows (only partially translated so far):

If you want to limit your users in selecting specific languages just remove the files languageID.lang (i.e. DK.lang) for the languages you don’t want your users to use.

If you want to remove the language option all together then just remove all the lang-files except the English one. Now your users won’t be able to select any other language and everything will be in English.

If time permits you can also translate the WI4 help files. The location is "\Program Files\Citrix\Web Interface\4.0\localizedContent." Just create a new language folder, copy the English files into it, and begin translating.

Note from Brian: If you have taken the time to create different translation files, please send them to me and we’ll post them here for everyone to use. (With full credit to you of course!)

Comments

Rene Vester wrote Nice article :)

on Wed, Jun 1 2005 2:28 AM

Hey Ilja

Nice article.. very useful as i am also in Denmark i know exactly what you mean :)

Have you had the time to finish the translation if not i will do it hopefully tonight.

/Rene

Stefan Freij wrote Perfect

on Wed, Jun 1 2005 1:48 PM

Hi
I'm going to create language files for Sweden, Rene, when you have translated danish can you send me a copy
You maybe want swedish when i'm done :)

Ilja Godau wrote Thanks....

on Wed, Jun 1 2005 3:40 PM

I forgot to mention one thing in the article.

After editing some of the files or adding another language it is necessary to do a 'iisreset' on the WI4 server.

As soon as I'm finished with the danish translation I will mail it to Brian, as he has agreed to post them.

Rene Vester wrote Re: Perfect

on Thu, Jun 2 2005 3:54 AM

I would like swedish for sure, but i agree with Ilja and Brian lets get them all to a common place so we can all benefit :)

Rene Vester wrote Re: Thanks....

on Thu, Jun 2 2005 4:51 AM

as for making things as much the same as possible and not handicap us in cases of trouble shooting i will redo most error messages from <Error message> to "(in native) Contact your systemsadministrator with Error message: <Error>"

Guest wrote Thanks ... but need some help

on Fri, Jun 10 2005 4:56 AM

it works on Win2K, but doesn't work on my W2K3 box! Why? Anything I need to pay attention (I did to restart my IIS)?

Ilja Godau wrote Re: Thanks ... but need some help

on Sat, Jun 11 2005 10:29 AM

Hmmm...I actually did not test this on a W2K IIS - all my servers are W2K3 and I didn't have any problems at all (no special setup). I must admit I didn't think about there being any differences between IIS5 and IIS6 in regards to WI4 and especially not just talking about the languages...

The only advice I have is to try a new clean install...sorry.

Guest wrote Problem installing Web Interface 4.0

on Wed, Jun 15 2005 9:29 AM

When I try to install Web Interface 4.0 I get an error saying:

"WebInterfaceSetupDotNet.exe - Common Language Runtime Debugging Servicees

Application has generated an exeption that could not be handled.

Process id=0x20c4 (8388), Thread id=0x220c (8716).

Click OK to terminate the application.
Click CANCEL to debug the application.

This happens on all of my serverer (Win 2003 Server)

Pieter Verkiel wrote This caused me some homework... :-)

on Mon, Aug 22 2005 3:17 AM

I did some translation to Dutch, and sent the results to Brian, so others may take advantage of my job. I added a .xls as translation aid (plain and simple but perhaps nice for other languages). The only thing I have not sorted out yet is how to set the default language in the Access Suite Console - User Appearance of the Web Interface. Although I deleted all language files exept Engish and Dutch, I still cann't choose Dutch, but I can choose Japanese. How do I solve this, any sugestions?

Franc van de Westelaken wrote Re: This caused me some homework... :-)

on Thu, Sep 8 2005 8:21 AM

Nice,

but how can you set the default language to dutch. I remove all .lang files except the dutch one, but when I browse to the Web Interface site I get a configuration error message. When I copy the en.lang file back it works again and I have to manually choose Dutch as preferred language in orde to get it to work.

Franc.

Guest wrote Re: Re: This caused me some homework... :-)

on Tue, Sep 13 2005 7:42 AM

You get the error message because you can't delete the default language file. In the Conf directory of the site you're using there's a file called bootstrap.conf. It contains a DefaultLocale= setting. If you change this to DK (for Dutch?) and remove the other files then do an iisreset it'll default to Dutch. Ron

Søren Tøpholm wrote Available translations ?

on Sat, Nov 12 2005 10:15 AM

Thanks for this great string, its been very helpfull to translating the interface.

Did any translations of the language files ever become available on this site ?
I would very much like to get the files for danish. It would save me for a lot of work

I hope someone are able to help.

Thanks

Brian Madden wrote RE: Available translations ?

on Mon, Nov 14 2005 2:42 PM

Yes, we have many. Just type in "Web Interface Translation" or "Web Interface Danish" or whatever into the search box in the upper right corner of the screen.

Brian

Guest wrote Russian language

on Wed, Nov 23 2005 8:15 AM

I made attempt do it for Russian. Nothing turned out. Then I decided to add Italian. It is not added. What does it matter? What should I do for success? I have W2k3 box.

Guest wrote RE: Problem installing Web Interface 4.0

on Tue, Jan 3 2006 9:39 AM

try installing from a local source (not unc) and make sure there are no spaces in the path.

worked for me

Guest wrote RE: Available translations ?

on Fri, Feb 10 2006 5:17 AM

Hi I have tried to search for "Web Interface Danish" but I don't get a result.
 
Do you have the danish translation for WI 4.2?
 
Thanks for a great site http://www.brianmadden.com/forum/micons/m11.gif

Brian Madden wrote RE: Available translations ?

on Fri, Feb 10 2006 5:37 PM

We have many translations available, but nothing in Danish. If you make a Danish one, please send it to me and I'll post it.

Brian

Guest wrote Updating Web Client using Foreign Language

on Tue, Feb 21 2006 8:31 AM

Hi,
This looks like a bug that can be annoying.

When setting the bootstrap.conf file with the new DefaulLocale, in my case DK for Danish I no longer was able to update my webclient correctly.
What happened was it downloaded a GERMAN version, tried to install it and crashed the install because some language DLL between english and German did not match.

When doing a mouse over the Client install link on the Web Interface page I realized it was pointing to ICAWEB/de/ica32/ica32t.exe. Before I changed Defaultlocale it had been en for english.

It seems that changing the default locale ALSO changes the place it looks for the webclient, and not only that, in the absence of a dk directory in the ICAWEB structure it just took the closest maching thing being de for GERMAN, and not what SHOULD be the default en for english.

Hope this helps anyone in the same fix as I was in :-)

-Bjørn Kelsen (Citrix Expert in the making - this was my first install :-)

Guest wrote RE: Updating Web Client using Foreign Language

on Tue, Feb 21 2006 8:33 AM

Oh and the easy fix is ofcourse to copy the en subdir under ICAWEB and make a dk sudbir - then the WI chooses correctly and all is well ! (Bjørn)

Guest wrote WI4.2

on Wed, Apr 5 2006 8:04 AM

I’m running a server with the WI 4.2 interface.
 
I tried to add Danish language support, but whit out any success.
 
I followed the guide in this article.
I also tried to change a bit in the de.lang file.
 
I changed FriendlyName=Deutsch  (German) to FriendlyName=Deutschs (German)
 
But couldn’t see the extra S that I added, in the web interface.
 
Any suggest what could be wrong. I know that the guide is for a WI 4.0

Guest wrote RE: WI4.2

on Wed, Apr 5 2006 9:58 AM

Restarted the server, now it seems to work.

Does anyone have the complete danish pack for the WI 4.2 version?

Guest wrote not working

on Mon, Aug 7 2006 12:01 PM

Hi ,
i've installed the translated web interfaces files in italian.. but in the language tab i cannot find the italian one...could somebody help me?
thanks
 

Guest wrote lang file prob

on Fri, Oct 6 2006 10:38 AM

hi,
you need to restart the world wide web publishing service after you copied the files to the language folder.
 

Guest wrote WI 4.5

on Fri, May 11 2007 8:08 AM

Hello @all,

 i tried to use the translations on WI4.5, you just need to insert the Version Number into the .lang File to show
the Language at the WI-Startup Page

for example :

FriendlyName=Italiano (Italian)
Version=4.5.1.8215

Greez,

Markus Loeffler (markus.loeffler@kumatronik.de)

Guest wrote Sorting language dropdown

on Wed, Mar 5 2008 3:10 AM

Hi,
i've created additional language set's i.e. for German and English with FriendlyName=Deutsch (regional free) and English (regional free).
Because of this modification the user is able to choose between two Desktops per language.
At default Desktop the RegionalSettings will be presetted at logon to the country specifications.
The German (regional free) Desktop let's the user choose their settings by themselves, neccessary for some applications.
How is it possible to sort the display of the language in the dropdwon, so that the additional "regional free"-languages are on bottom?
Thanks

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