The Summary Section

This section of the language file provides the information about the Language file itself. The most essential element is the Locale element:

<Locale>en_US</Locale>

The text inside this element represents the current language and country code. The list of available language codes is governed by the ISO Standard and can be downloaded from the Web site of the Library of Congress. The country codes can also be downloaded from The following URL.

The text inside the Locale element should correspond to the name of the Language file. For example, the only valid name for a Language file that has the Locale element with the text of en_US is Approach[en_US].xml.

The Summary section also contains information that identifies the Language file in the Approach Options dialog box. The Titles element (and each of the Title elements inside) specify the string that Approach displays in the Language drop-down list. The Titles element looks as follows:

<Titles>
  <Title locale="en_US">English</Title>
  ...
</Titles>

Because the user might wish to switch Languages the information about the Language file that is being selected must be as comprehensive as possible, no matter what the currently selected Language file is. To achieve this, provide as many Title elements as possible. Use all available sources for translating your Title into foreign languages. Note that the US English Title is always mandatory.

Each Language file must also contains information about the creator. Use the Created_Bys element to specify it:

<Created_Bys>
  <Created_By locale="en_US">Created by KO Software</Created_By>
  ...
</Created_Bys>

You can also some brief description for a Language file which can be put in the Comments element:

<Comments>
  <Comment locale="en_US">The standard KO Approach localization</Comment>
  ...
</Comments>

Similarly to populating the Titles element, use as many translations as possible for Created_Bys and Comments elements so that there is more chance for your data to be understood by an international user.