Creating a Multilingual Setup Package

By default, the Setup packages that you create with Tarma Installer have an English-language user interface. However, it is also possible to create localized Setup packages, i.e., Setup packages that use a different language than English in their user interface. You can choose to build a separate Setup package for each language, or to create a single package that contains all languages. In the latter case, the customer can select his preferred language at installation time.

Localized Readme and License Agreement

When you select non-English languages for the installation user interface, you can define Readme and License Agreement texts to match them. This is an optional feature; Tarma Installer lets you define as many or as few Readme and License Agreement text variants as you like, and allows you full flexibility in assigning text variants to Setup languages.

Language-specific files

If you enable multilingual installation, you can designate specific installation files as belonging to a particular language. If you do so, only files that are marked for the Setup language selected by the customer are actually installed; files not marked for that language are silently ignored.

Note - By default, each installation file is marked "for any language" and will be installed regardless of the Setup language. Therefore, you do not have to take any action in this respect unless you want to narrow down the language selection for a particular file.

How to create a multilingual Setup package

To create a multilingual Setup package, act as follows.

1. Create a Tarma Installer project as you normally would, and add all the files, shortcuts, and system settings that your application requires.
2. Select the Installation - Languages page by clicking on its bullet in the Navigation area.
3. Check the box Multilingual support in the General options section.
4. Check or clear the boxes next to each language in the Languages list to select whatever languages you want to include in your Setup package.

5. Choose one of the following options to select the type of Setup package that you want to create. (Refer to Multilingual Setup in the online help for details about the two options.)

   • Multilingual installer - Creates a single Setup package that includes all selected languages and other texts. At installation time, the customer can choose his preferred language.
   • Per-language installers - Creates one Setup package per selected language. Each Setup package contains only the user interface and other texts for its own language.

The next time you build the project, Tarma Installer will create the appropriate multilingual Setup package.

How to add localized Readme and License Agreement texts

If you also want to provide localized Readme or License Agreement texts, continue with the following steps.

1. Select the Installation - Readme information page by clicking on its bullet in the Navigation area.
2. Create and enter the Readme texts for each language that you want to support. See Displaying Readme Information for details.
3. If desired, do the same for the License Agreement texts on the Installation - License Agreement page. See Displaying a License Agreement for details.
4. When finished with the texts, return to the Installation - Languages page.
5. Select each language in turn by clicking on its Language name (but not on the check box), then set the appropriate Readme and License Agreement text variants in the Associated Readme Information and Associated License Agreement fields for the language.

Tip - You don't need to create a separate Readme or License Agreement text for each language. It is perfectly all right to associate a text variant with more than one language. This might be useful, for example, if you do not have translations available for all languages that Tarma Installer supports and want to assign, say, the English Readme text to the languages that you didn't translate.

At installation time, Setup will display the Readme and License Agreement texts that are associated with the language selected by the customer.

How to specify language-specific files

To mark certain files for installation only for designated languages, act as follows.

1. Select the Project - Files page by clicking on its bullet in the Navigation area.

2. For each file that has specific language requirements, do the following. (Note that you can select several files at once in the Installation Files List to apply the language settings to all of them at the same time.)

   1. Click on the Languages... button in the Installation File Settings pane.
   2. In the Select Installation Languages dialog that appears, click the Install file(s) for these languages only bullet, then select the appropriate languages.
   3. Click Select to close the dialog and apply the language selection to the files.
3. To revert the language selection process, repeat the previous steps but select Install file(s) for all languages instead. Alternatively, click the Defaults button in the Installation file settings pane. However, be aware that this resets all installation defaults for the selected files.

At installation time, Setup will only install files that are marked specifically for the language chosen by the customer, plus all files that are marked Install file(s) for all languages.