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Viewing the Application in Different Languages

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In a multilanguage-enabled application, you can view the text in any language that has been added to the application. For more information about adding languages, see Language Modules.

Changing the Language from the User Interface

You can change the language in which text is displayed in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Development Environment and in the RoleTailored client.

When you change the language of the application from the user interface (UI) in either the development environment or the RoleTailored client, you are changing the global language.

For more information, see How to: Change the Language in the User Interface.

Changing the Language from C/AL Code

You can change the global language from C/AL code, which is the same as changing the language from the UI. To change the global language from C/AL code, use the GLOBALLANGUAGE function.

For more information, see Language Functions.

Languages and Primary Languages

If a particular string for the current language cannot be found, then Microsoft Dynamics NAV searches for the text in another related language. Languages in Windows are tagged with a primary language ID. For example, the language with ID 1033, which is English (United States), is the primary language for a group of languages that includes ID 2057, which is English (United Kingdom), and ID 3081, which is English (Australia). Similar relationships exist for languages such as French, Spanish, and German.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV uses the primary language if the text for the current language cannot be found. For example, if you are running the German (Switzerland) localized version and you open a page that contains strings that do not exist with the language ID for German (Switzerland), then Microsoft Dynamics NAV looks for a string with the language ID for German (Germany) because German (Germany) is the primary language for German (Switzerland).

The algorithm searches for the text to use in the following order:

  1. The language of the object, which can be specified by a developer in C/AL code.

  2. The primary language of the object language.

  3. The global language that is either selected by the user or specified by a developer in code.

  4. The primary language of the global language.

  5. The language of the localized version of the application.

  6. The primary language of the localized version of the application.

Text is always displayed, but you can have situations in which different pages or even different controls on a page are displayed in different languages.

To view all language IDs and the associated information, such as primary ID, name, and abbreviated name, you can design a page that is based on the Windows Language virtual table. For more information, see Windows Language Virtual Table.

Maintaining SQL Views for Languages

You can specify that SQL Server creates and maintains a view for each language ID that is added to a table or field in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. If you select this option, then external tools can use these views to access the CaptionML property of the object in the required languages instead of using the name that is supplied in the table.

For more information, see How to: Maintain SQL Views for Each Language.

Help in the RoleTailored Client

In the RoleTailored client, Help displays in the same language as you have selected in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. If the Help Server does not include that language, Help displays in English.

See Also

Concepts

Multilanguage Development
Microsoft Dynamics NAV Help Server