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Dictionaries Tab

ImportantThe information presented in this article can be applied in a similar fashion to Dictionarie Tab from Visual Studio Extension Project, Merge Module Project, Updates Configuration Project and Modification Package Project.

The Dictionaries page allows you to manage, create and register translation dictionaries for your project. Translation dictionaries are used at build time to translate strings into the target languages. Dictionaries are divided into two categories:

  • Registered (default) - these usually come with Advanced Installer but you can also register your own custom dictionaries. They reside in the "dictionaries" folder of Advanced Installer and their path is surrounded in < > characters. They must contain all the strings that might go into an MSI package.
  • Custom (user added)

Dictionaries

Managing

Each project has a set of dictionaries, depending on the build Languages Tab you specified. Adding a new language will automatically add its corresponding dictionary if Advanced Installer has one registered. Default Advanced Installer dictionaries can be removed only by removing the corresponding language from the build.

Strings are searched by their localization identifiers in the dictionaries in a descending order. You can change the search order from the [ Move Up ] and [ Move Down ] buttons.

You can add a custom dictionary by using the [ Add... ] button or you can remove it by using the [ Remove ] button.

Creating and Registering

You can create a dictionary for translation containing all possible strings in an Advanced Installer package from the [ Create... ] button. After translation, such dictionaries can be imported into Advanced Installer by using the [ Import... ] button and thus become registered dictionaries. Registered dictionaries are available in the Start Page, the Languages Tab page, etc.

This is the best way to translate packages into a new (unregistered) language:

  • Add that language to the build in the Languages Tab page.
  • Create a dictionary using the [ Create... ] button.
  • Edit and write the translations in the .AIL dictionary file.
  • Import the dictionary into Advanced Installer using the [ Import... ] button.

ImportantA dictionary file can contain more than one language. When importing, only the languages that are not registered are taken into consideration. The languages already registered are ignored. Also ignored are the "start" languages - they are marked to be ignored when the dictionary is generated.

File Format

Translation dictionary files are regular XML files. They must be encoded in UTF-8 encoding. They can be edited with any Unicode aware editor that can save in UTF-8. Notepad on Windows XP will do. However, a proper XML validating editor should be used instead.

Advanced Installer translation files have the .AIL extension. It stands for "Advanced Installer Language(s)".