Setting up a multilingual user interface

The user interface culture determines the language of the Xperience administration interface, as well as other factors like numeric and date formats.

The default Xperience installation only provides an English version (en-us culture) for the user interface texts. The texts are stored in resx resource files:

• In the CMS\CMSResources folder of the Xperience administration project
• As embedded resources in application assemblies in the live site project

Managing cultures

Users with the Global administrator privilege level can manage all cultures in the Localization application on the Cultures tab. To display only UI cultures, choose Yes in the Is UI culture filter and click Search.

When you create a new culture or edit an existing culture, you can define the following properties:

Preparing UI cultures

Xperience allows you to manage content in any language, including double-byte (eastern) languages, such as Chinese. All content is stored and published in UNICODE.

To prepare the system to display the administration interface in a different language or at least with different culture settings (e.g. calendar and numeric format):

1. Open the Localization application.
2. Select the Cultures tab.
3. Edit () the culture you want to use for the administration interface.
4. Select the Is UI culture check box.
5. Click Save.

Users can now select the new culture as their default UI culture in the My profile application using the Preferred user interface culture drop-down list. However, if the system does not have a corresponding language pack installed, the administration interface strings will still be displayed in the default language.

Installing localization packs

You can download localization packs with already translated resource files for certain languages from DevNet.

After downloading a package:

1. Open the package and copy the resx files into the appropriate locations:

   • Create a CMSResources folder in the root of your live site project.
   • Add the main cms resx files into the CMSResources folder of both the administration and live site project.
   • If the pack contains resources for the Xperience builder features (Kentico.Builder.resx, etc.):
     1. Create an App_Data\Global\Resources folder in your live site project.
     2. Add a sub-folder matching the culture code of the pack’s culture, for example he-IL.
     3. Copy the builder resx files into the new sub-folder.

2. Restart the application to apply the changes to the user interface:

   1. Open the System application.
   2. Click Restart all web farm servers.

Setting the default UI culture for the administration interface

<add key="CMSDefaultUICulture" value="en-nz" />

The value of this key must be a valid culture code (in the example above, en-nz represents the English - New Zealand culture).

When the above mentioned key is set and the CMS.resx file contains the en-nz dictionary, the UI culture will be en-nz for users who have their Preferred user interface culture set to (default).

Applying a culture to a specific user’s UI

You can set the administration interface to a specific culture for each user in the system:

1. Open the Users application.
2. Edit () the user.
3. Select the required Preferred user interface culture on the General tab.
4. Click Save.

Users may also select their own user interface culture in the My profile application on the Details tab, by setting the Preferred user interface culture.

When the user signs out and then back in, the system displays the interface according to the new culture settings and with translated strings (once the translation is complete).