Using Liferay's Language Settings

For a given locale, you can override Liferay’s core UI messages. Modifying Language key values in Liferay provides a lot of localization flexibility in itself, but we’re always looking for new ways to give you more control. There are language settings in Liferay’s Language_xx.properties files that give you even more localization options.

• In the add and edit user forms, configure the name fields that are displayed and the field values available in select fields. For example, leave out the middle name field if you want, or alter the prefix selections.

• Control the directionality of content and messages in Liferay (left to right or right to left).

To see how these settings are configured, open Liferay’s core Language.properties file in one of two ways:

1. From Liferay’s source code, navigate to

    liferay-portal/portal-impl/src/content/Language.properties
   

2. From a Liferay bundle’s portal-impl.jar.

    [Liferay Home]/tomcat-[version]/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/lib/portal-impl.jar
   

   Just open the content folder in the Jar to find the language files.

The first section in the Language.properties file is labeled Language settings:

##
## Language settings
##

lang.dir=ltr
lang.line.begin=left
lang.line.end=right
lang.user.name.field.names=prefix,first-name,middle-name,last-name,suffix
lang.user.name.prefix.values=Dr,Mr,Ms,Mrs
lang.user.name.required.field.names=last-name
lang.user.name.suffix.values=II,III,IV,Jr,Phd,Sr

Note: To use the language settings mentioned here, you need a module, which is like a magic carpet on which your code and resources ride triumphantly into Liferay’s OSGi runtime. Refer to the tutorial on overriding language keys to set up a module with the following characteristics:

• Contains an implementation of ResourceBundle that is registered in the OSGi runtime.

• Contains a Language.properties file for the locale whose properties you want to override.

The user name properties are used to customize certain fields of the add and edit user forms based on a user’s locale.

Localizing User Names

Liferay’s customers come from all over the world, and we recognize that naming conventions are different between locales. Liferay’s engineers have made several of the user name fields configurable in Liferay where user name information is entered or edited.

• Remove certain name fields and make others appear more than once. Some locale’s need more than one last name, for example.

   lang.user.name.field.names=prefix,first-name,middle-name,last-name,suffix
  

• Change the prefix and suffix values for a locale.

   lang.user.name.prefix.values=Dr,Mr,Ms,Mrs
   lang.user.name.suffix.values=II,III,IV,Jr,Phd,Sr
  

• Specify which fields are required.

   lang.user.name.required.field.names=last-name
  

Note: A user’s first name is mandatory in Liferay. Because of this, take these two points into consideration when configuring a locale’s user name settings:

1. The first-name field can’t be removed from the field names list.

    lang.user.name.field.names=prefix,first-name,middle-name,last-name,suffix
   

2. Because first name is required, it’s always implicitly included in the required field names property:

    lang.user.name.required.field.names=last-name
   

   Therefore, any fields you enter here are in addition to the first name field. Last name is required by default, but you can disable it by deleting its value from the property:

    lang.user.name.required.field.names=
   

   In that case, only first name would be required.

The properties for changing user name settings are those that begin with lang.user.name in the language settings section of a locale’s language properties file.

For most of the [locales enabled by default](https://docs.liferay.com/dxp/digital-enterprise/7.0-latest/propertiesdoc/portal.properties.html#Languages and Time Zones) the user name properties are specifically tailored to that location.

locales.enabled=ca_ES,zh_CN,nl_NL,en_US,fi_FI,fr_FR,de_DE,iw_IL,hu_HU,ja_JP,pt_BR,es_ES

For example, these are the English (Language_en.properties) properties for setting user name fields:

lang.user.name.field.names=prefix,first-name,middle-name,last-name,suffix
lang.user.name.prefix.values=Dr,Mr,Ms,Mrs
lang.user.name.required.field.names=last-name
lang.user.name.suffix.values=II,III,IV,Jr,Phd,Sr

Figure 1: The user name settings impact the way user information and forms appear in Liferay.

Compare those to the Spanish (Language_es.properties) settings:

lang.user.name.field.names=prefix,first-name,last-name
lang.user.name.prefix.values=Sr,Sra,Sta,Dr,Dra
lang.user.name.required.field.names=last-name

Figure 2: The Spanish user name settings omit the suffix and middle name fields entirely.

The biggest difference between the English and Spanish form fields in the images above is that the middle name and suffix fields are omitted in the Spanish configuration. Other differences include the specific prefix values.

¡Muy excelente! Localizing the forms for adding and editing users is accomplished using the same method by which Liferay’s UI messages are localized: by overriding one of Liferay’s Lanuguage_xx.properties files.

Right to Left or Left to Right?

The first three properties in the language settings section are used for changing the direction in which the language’s characters are displayed. Most languages are read from left to right, but other languages are meant to be read from right to left (Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian, for example). It can also be changed for languages that have been traditionally displayed left to right (like English) as a funny practical joke. Just don’t tell anyone that you got the idea here.

Here’s what the relevant language properties look like for a language that should be displayed from right to left:

lang.dir=rtl
lang.line.begin=right
lang.line.end=left

With these customizations yo can transform Liferay’s UI into a user-friendly environment no matter where your users are from.