Specifying the Primary Language for an Application

Globalization attributes specify how the HTML DB engine determines the primary language of an application.

To edit globalization attributes:

Navigate to the Workspace home page.
Click the Application Builder icon.
Select an application.
Click Edit Attributes.
Click Edit Globalization Attributes.
From Application Primary Language, select the language in which the application is being developed.

From Application Language Derived From, specify how the HTML DB engine determines (or derives) the application language. Available options are described in Table 15-1.

Table 15-1 Application Language Derived From Options

Option	Description
No NLS (Application not translated)	Select this option if the application will not be translated.
Use Application Primary Language	Determines the application primary language based on the Application Primary Language attribute (see step 5).
Browser (use browser language preference)	Determines the application primary language based on the user's browser language preference.
Application Preference (use FSP_LANGUAGE_PREFERENCE)	Determines the application primary language based a value defined using the `HTMLDB_UTIL`.`SET_PREFERENCE` API. Select this option to maintain the selected language preference across multiple log ins. See Also: "SET_PREFERENCE Procedure"
Item Preference (use item containing preference)	Determines based on an application-level item called `FSP_LANGUAGE_PREFERENCE`. Using this option requires Oracle HTML DB to determine the appropriate language preference every time the user logs in.

Using Format Masks for Items

The HTML DB engine applies globalization settings for each rendered page. This default behavior can impact the display of certain items such as numbers and dates.

For example, suppose your application determines the application language based on the user's browser language preference. If the HTML DB engine determines the users's browser language preference is French, it displays dates and numbers in a format that conforms to French standards. You can override this default behavior and explicitly control how items display by applying a format mask. You apply a format mask by making a selection from the Display As list:

When you create the item
After you create the item by editing the item attributes

To edit item attributes:

Navigate to the Workspace home page.
Click the Application Builder icon.
Select an application.
Select a page.

The Page Definition appears.
Under Items, select the item name.

The Edit Page Item page appears.
Under Identification, make a select from the Display As list.

Translating Applications for Multibyte Languages

If your application needs to run in several languages (such as Chinese or Japanese) simultaneously, consider configuring your database with a character set to support all of the languages. The same character set has to be configured in the corresponding data access descriptor (DAD) in mod_plsql. UTF8 and AL32UTF8 are the character sets you can use to support almost all languages around the world.