Specifying the Primary Language for an Application

Globalization attributes specify how the Application Express engine determines the primary language of an application.

To edit globalization attributes:

On the Workspace home page, click the Application Builder icon.
Select an application.
Click Shared Components.
Under Globalization, click Edit Attributes.
From Application Primary Language, select the language in which the application is being developed.

From Application Language Derived From, specify how the Application Express engine determines (or derives) the application language. Available options are described in Table 16-1.

Table 16-1 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's primary language based on the Application Primary Language attribute. (See step 5.)
Browser (use browser language preference)	Determines the application's primary language based on the user's browser language preference.
Application Preference (use FSP_LANGUAGE_PREFERENCE)	Determines the application's primary language based on a value defined using the `APEX_UTIL`.`SET_PREFERENCE` API. Select this option to maintain the selected language preference across multiple logins. See Also: "SET_PREFERENCE Procedure" in Oracle Application Express API Reference
Item Preference (use item containing preference)	Determines the application's primary language based on an application-level item called `FSP_LANGUAGE_PREFERENCE`. Using this option requires Oracle Application Express to determine the appropriate language preference every time the user logs in.

Using Format Masks for Items

The Application Express 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 Application Express 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

The following procedure describes how to edit item attributes for items having the source type of Database Column.

To edit item attributes:

On 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 Name, make a selection from the Display As list.
Under source, select or enter a format mask.

Translating Applications for Multibyte Languages

If your application needs to run in several languages simultaneously (such as Chinese and Japanese), 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 database access descriptor (DAD) in mod_plsql. UTF8 and AL32UTF8 are the character sets you can use to support almost all languages around the world.