External Resource Bundles

InstallAnywhere 2018

As an alternative to the built-in, dynamic locale files, InstallAnywhere allows you to create custom resource bundles. Because these external resource bundles use custom keys and values, they are well suited to values that remain consistent across products and versions.

These resources are created and referenced during installer design time. They are bundled at build time and resolved at install time.

Note • In the Advanced Designer, when you replace text elements with references to a key in an external resource bundle, InstallAnywhere uses the locale files from the external resource bundle for all localizations of that element.

The installer resolves the localized value based on the value of $INSTALLER_LOCALE$. So, for example, when an end user chooses German on your installer’s splash screen, the installer uses the value of the key that your installer references from the German locale file in subsequent panels.

Naming Conventions

The properties files in the external resource bundle should use the following syntax:

<bundle>_<language_code>.properties

<bundle> can be any string of legal file name characters but must be consistent between the various locale properties files in the same external resource bundle.
<language_code> must be the language code for one of InstallAnywhere’s supported locales.

For example: custom_en.properties, custom_ja.properties

File Format

The properties files in the external resource bundle are standard Java resource bundles. The properties files must be text files (UTF-8) with a list of key/value pairs for each localized string.

InstallSet.installSetName=Custom

InstallSet.description=Choose this option to customize the features to be installed.

 

Note • To use external resource bundles, you must create a properties file for each locale you plan to support. Installers built for locales without a properties file default to the English values for each localized string that references the external resource bundle.

External Resource Bundle Support for Merge Modules in Install and Uninstall Sequences

Merge modules are able to access the external resource bundle of their parent installer during the Install and Uninstall sequences. This is also applicable to one‑level nested merge modules and to multiple merge modules that are installed by a single parent.

See Also