Event Listener module
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Language module
Macro Module
Theme module
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Language module

Available:

Confluence 2.2 and later

To run Confluence in another language, you must install a language pack plugin for that translation. Guides and tools for collaboratively creating translations have been made available to the Confluence community.

This page provides a technical overview of plugins, for users interested in creating or updating a translation. To install a translation, please see Installing a Language Pack.

Translations for the Rich Text Editor can be part of a Confluence language pack plugin.

Language Pack Overview

Language plugins are placed in the <CONFLUENCE-INSTALL-DIRECTORY>/languages/<KEY> directory, where <KEY> is the international language identifier. They consist of three files:

Name

Filename

Language Plugin Descriptor

atlassian-plugin.xml

Purpose: Defines language settings in language tag.

Location: ./src/etc

ConfluenceActionSupport Properties File

ConfluenceActionSupport<KEY>.properties

Purpose: Contains text strings in key:value mapping.

Location: ./src/etc/com/atlassian/confluence/core

Flag Image

<KEY>.png

Purpose: Contains flag image for country.

Location: ./src/etc/com/atlassian/confluence/core

Directory Structure

The location of the three files that compose a Language Pack plugin is as follows:

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./src/etc/com/atlassian/confluence/<PATH_OF_PROPERTIES_FILE>
./src/etc/templates/languages/<LANGUAGE_KEY>/<LANGUAGE_KEY>.gif
./src/etc/atlassian-plugin.xml

As an example, this is the directory listing of the German translation ("de_DE"):

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./confluence-2.2-std/plugins/de_DE/src
./confluence-2.2-std/plugins/de_DE/src/etc
./confluence-2.2-std/plugins/de_DE/src/etc/atlassian-plugin.xml
./confluence-2.2-std/plugins/de_DE/src/etc/com
./confluence-2.2-std/plugins/de_DE/src/etc/com/atlassian
./confluence-2.2-std/plugins/de_DE/src/etc/com/atlassian/confluence
./confluence-2.2-std/plugins/de_DE/src/etc/com/atlassian/confluence/core
./confluence-2.2-std/plugins/de_DE/src/etc/com/atlassian/confluence/core/ConfluenceActionSupport_de_DE.properties
./confluence-2.2-std/plugins/de_DE/src/etc/templates
./confluence-2.2-std/plugins/de_DE/src/etc/templates/languages
./confluence-2.2-std/plugins/de_DE/src/etc/templates/languages/de_DE
./confluence-2.2-std/plugins/de_DE/src/etc/templates/languages/de_DE/de_DE.gif

Language Plugin Structure

The three components of a plugin must be updated for each translation. The following sections describe updating the language plugin descriptor, flag image and ConfluenceActionSupport properties file.

Defining The Language Plugin Descriptor

This is an example atlassian-plugin.xml file for a Language Pack plugin for German:

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<atlassian-plugin name='German language pack' key='confluence.languages.de_DE'>
    <plugin-info>
        <description>This plugin contains translations for the German language</description>
        <vendor name="Atlassian Software Systems" url="http://www.atlassian.com"/>
        <version>1.0</version>
    </plugin-info>

    <language name="German" key="de_DE" language="de" country="DE">
        <!-- Define a flag that will be shown for this language -->
        <resource name="de_DE.gif" type="download" location="templates/languages/de_DE/de_DE.gif">
            <property key="content-type" value="image/gif"/>
        </resource>
    </language>
</atlassian-plugin>

Language Plugin Descriptor Attributes

The atlassian-plugin.xml file declares the language being bundled using the following attributes:

Attribute

Description

language

The language being defined

country

The country the language belongs to

variant

The variant of the language

*language attribure is required.

These values are based off those defined in the java.util.Locale class. For information on the valid values for the language, country and variant attributes, please see the java.util.Locale documentation.

The key attribute is an aggregation of the the three previous attributes, in the same format as that of java.util.Locale: language[DOC:_country][DOC:_variant]

Flag Images

Language packs define a flag that is to be used to represent the language. The atlassian-plugin.xml defines the language property:

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<resource name="en_AU.gif" type="download" location="templates/languages/en_AU/en_AU.gif">
    <property key="content-type" value="image/gif"/>
</resource>

When selecting a language, the flag defined above will be displayed. Additionally, the flag will appear during the setup process.

ConfluenceActionSupport Properties File

This Java Properties file contains key-value pairs for each string in Confluence, and supports variables. For example:

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remove.all.name=Remove All
view.mail.thread.desc.full=Entire Thread (Showing {0} of {1})

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