Supporting new locales for adaptive forms localization

About locale dictionaries

The localization of adaptive forms relies on two types of locale dictionaries:

Form-specific dictionary Contains strings used in adaptive forms. For example, labels, field names, error messages, help descriptions, and so on. It is managed as a set of XLIFF files for each locale and you can access it at https://<host>:<port>/libs/cq/i18n/translator.html.

Global dictionaries There are two global dictionaries, managed as JSON objects, in AEM client library. These dictionaries contain default error messages, month names, currency symbols, date and time patterns, and so on. You can find these dictionaries in CRXDe Lite at /libs/fd/xfaforms/clientlibs/I18N. These locations contains separate folders for each locale. Because global dictionaries are usually not updated frequently, keeping separate JavaScript files for each locale enables browsers to cache them and reduce network bandwidth usage when accessing different adaptive forms on same server.

How localization of adaptive form works

There are two methods to identify the locale of the adaptive form. When an adaptive form is rendered, it identifies the requested locale by :

looking at the [local] selector in the adaptive form URL. The format of the URL is http://host:port/content/forms/af/[afName].[locale].html?wcmmode=disabled. Using [local] selector allows caching an adaptive form.
looking at the following parameters in the specified order:
- Request parameter afAcceptLang
  To override the browser locale of users, you can pass the afAcceptLang request parameter to force the locale. For example, the following URL will force to render the form in Japanese locale:
  https://'[server]:[port]'/<contextPath>/<formFolder>/<formName>.html?wcmmode=disabled&afAcceptLang=ja
- The browser locale set for the user, which is specified in the request using the Accept-Language header.
- Language setting of the user specified in AEM.
- Browser locale is enabled, by default. To change browser locale setting,
  - Open the configuration manager. The URL is http://[server]:[port]/system/console/configMgr
  - Locate and open the Adaptive Form and Interactive Communication Web Channel configuration.
  - Change status of the Use Browser Locale option and Save the configuration.

Once the locale is identified, the adaptive forms picks the form-specific dictionary. If the form-specific dictionary for the requested locale is not found, it uses the dictionary for language in which adaptive form was authored.

If no locale information is present, adaptive form is delivered in the original language of the form. The original language is the language used while developing the adaptive form.

If a client library for the requested locale doesn’t exist, it checks for a client library for the language code present in the locale. For example, if the requested locale is en_ZA (South African English) and the client library for en_ZA doesn’t exist, the adaptive form will use the client library for en (English) language, if it exists. However, if none of them exist, the adaptive form uses the dictionary for en locale.

Add localization support for non-supported locales

AEM Forms currently supports localization of adaptive forms content in English (en), Spanish (es), French (fr), Italian (it), German (de), Japanese (ja), Portuguese-Brazilian (pt-BR), Chinese (zh-CN), Chinese-Taiwan (zh-TW), and Korean (ko-KR) locales.

To add support for a new locale at adaptive forms runtime:

Add a locale to the Guide Localization service

Go to https://'[server]:[port]'/system/console/configMgr.
Click to edit the Guide Localization Service component.
Add the locale you want to add to the list of supported locales.

GuideLocalizationSevice

Add XFA client library for a locale

Create a node of type cq:ClientLibraryFolder under etc/<folderHierarchy>, with category xfaforms.I18N.<locale>, and add the following files to the client library:

I18N.js defining xfalib.locale.Strings for the <locale> as defined in /etc/clientlibs/fd/xfaforms/I18N/ja/I18N.
js.txt containing the following:

/libs/fd/xfaforms/clientlibs/I18N/Namespace.js
I18N.js
/etc/clientlibs/fd/xfaforms/I18N/LogMessages.js

Add adaptive form client library for a locale

Create a node of type cq:ClientLibraryFolder under etc/<folderHierarchy>, with category as guides.I18N.<locale> and and dependencies as xfaforms.3rdparty, xfaforms.I18N.<locale> and guide.common. ``

Add the following files to the client library:

i18n.js defining guidelib.i18n, having patterns of “calendarSymbols”, datePatterns, timePatterns, dateTimeSymbols, numberPatterns, numberSymbols, currencySymbols, typefaces for the <locale> as per the XFA specifications described in Locale Set Specification. You can also see how it is defined for other supported locales in /etc/clientlibs/fd/af/I18N/fr/javascript/i18n.js.
LogMessages.js defining guidelib.i18n.strings and guidelib.i18n.LogMessages for the <locale> as defined in /etc/clientlibs/fd/af/I18N/fr/javascript/LogMessages.js.
js.txt containing the following:

i18n.js
LogMessages.js

Add locale support for the dictionary

Perform this step only if the <locale> you are adding is not among en, de, es, fr, it, pt-br, zh-cn, zh-tw, ja, ko-kr.

Create an nt:unstructured node languages under etc, if not present already.
Add a multi-valued string property languages to the node, if not present already.
Add the <locale> default locale values de, es, fr, it, pt-br, zh-cn, zh-tw, ja, ko-kr, if not present already.
Add the <locale> to the values of the languages property of /etc/languages.