Back Forward Internationalization and localization — Concepts and terms

 Concepts and terms

With careful attention to design, a single PRPC application can support users who:

All this can occur while these users share the common set of underlying rules, logic, and business benefits the application provides.

These capabilities increase the value of your application by allowing enterprise-wide or worldwide use without extensive training, reconfiguration, or replication. Business logic changes (to decision rules, flows, and so on) affect users identically and simultaneously, regardless of their language or location.

Locale

A locale is one of the standard codes in the format aa_BB_CC, where aa represents the language and _BB or _BB_CC represents a country variant suffix. For example, it_IT is the locale for Italian as spoken in Italy, de_DE is German as spoken in Germany, and de_CH is Swiss German. (In Microsoft Windows, the locale codes use a dash rather than an underscore character and sometimes omit the second and third portion for the dominant country, such as fr for the French language as spoken in France.)

Every Windows workstation has a locale setting, recorded in the Regional Settings control panel. PRPC detects this setting and uses it automatically to determine the formats for dates, times, and numbers both on display and input. Thus, a United Kingdom user can enter and view dates in the format 14/12/2004 while the United States coworkers enter and view dates in the format 12/14/2004.

Similarly, the UK user sees 15:15 as the time when the United States worker sees 03:15 P.M. as the time. The internal representation of dates and times supports both users. This capability requires no PRPC configuration and, for most Windows workstations, no additional font installations.

For a list of locales and the corresponding text descriptions in Sun's JDK, see:

WWWhttp://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/intl/locale.doc.html.

See also locale and About the Locale Settings tool.

Depending on the control rule used to present a property, property values for dates, numbers, and times can be presented either with or without localization. Most standard properties use localization.

Fonts

Workstation fonts are managed by Windows software. If an Internet Explorer display references a font not installed, it may not render correctly. To remedy this, install an appropriate font using the Windows XP, or Windows Office CD, or another source of fonts. Select Tools > Internet Options and click  Fonts   to see which fonts are missing.

Consult the PDN article PDN 10095 How to enable workstation support of international fonts and languages for additional information about workstation fonts.

Language-specific RuleSets

A language-specific RuleSet Name consists of an application RuleSet name followed by a single underscore and a locale code. For example, for the application defined in the ALPHA RuleSet, the value ALPHA_it_it identifies an Italian-specific RuleSet.

Developers can create and add rules to such RuleSets. Typically however, such RuleSets contain field value rules that localize words or phrases from portal rules, harnesses, and sections. The decision rules, flows, activities, properties, and other rules that determine the functions and results of the application are not needed in language-specific RuleSets.

Language-specific user forms and portals

Application facilities visible to application users are determined primarily by:

In addition, application users see and interpret the Short Description fields on certain class rules and flows.

Through a careful design and implementation effort, your application can be presented in a second language or in any one of multiple languages using language-specific RuleSets that each contains only a collection of field value rules. Users can work in the language of their preference or the language of a customer or party with whom they are communicating by phone or email. The fundamentals of your application — flows, activities, properties, and so on — operate as before with no translation required, simultaneously supporting users who work in different languages.

Language-specific correspondence

Correspondence your application sends is derived from correspondence rules (Rule-Obj-Corr rule type) and correspondence fragments. By creating language-specific correspondence rules and fragments, your application can respect the language preference of a party. For example, if a party prefers French and a French-language correspondence rule is available, an English-speaking user can send an email message or letter in French (provided no editing is need).

Character sets

Your PRPC installation and PegaRULES database can be installed with UTF-16 Unicode character set support. Note that this is an installation option; you can't enable UTF-16 after installation on a system that was installed with the UTF-8 character set.

Wizards

PRPC includes two wizards that simplify the process of identifying, translating, and creating the field value, correspondence, paragraph, and other rules that support localization:

Currencies

The standard control rule CurrencyAmount presents a monetary amount in the format of a user's default currency, such as 1,234.56/USD.

The standard library Math includes two functions for currency conversion:

No standard rules reference these two functions. Typically, the currency conversion rates themselves are provided by an external system that is accessed through a connector. Your application retains control over the source of the rate, the computation details, and when and how conversion occurs.

Definitionscurrency code, locale, language-specific RuleSet
Related topicsAbout the Locale Settings tool
About the Localization wizard
Rules Inspector tool — Localizing a form with the Field Value Inspector

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