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Editing Language Skins

If you create a new user-defined language skin, you need to edit it to make sure it provides all the correct text strings. You can also open a completed language skin to edit the translated text if you want.

How to edit a language skin

Select Tools>Manage Language Skins.

The Language Skins dialog opens.
From the list, select a language in bold or italic font.
Click Open File For Editing. If you selected a language in bold, click OK in the message that displays.

The Language Skin Editor opens.
In the Styles section click next to the item that you want to modify (e.g., AccordionItem, Control, Dialog), if necessary. Then select a style under the node. If a node does not have a plus button next to it (e.g., Formats, Home Button), click on the node itself.

Note: For more information about the purpose of each of these style items in the output, see Specifying Skin Style Settings.
Select the Property Groups or Alphabetical List option to display the properties for the style item.

It is usually easiest to work with properties in an alphabetical list.
In the Properties section, set the values for the properties that you want modify. Click in the field to the right of the property and type the translated text for that item. (If you are viewing by property group in stead of an alphabetical list, you need to click next to each property group to see the properties under it.)
Press CTRL+S or click to save your work.

Note: For the most part, language skins are designed for WebHelp outputs only (WebHelp, WebHelp Plus, WebHelp AIR, and WebHelp Mobile). However, if you are editing text strings in a language skin for toolbar items, those strings will be translated in DotNet Help and HTML Help outputs as well (see Specifying Custom Toolbar Settings for HTML Help Output and Specifying Custom Settings for Topic Toolbars). In addition, the "Formats/Cross-Reference" items in the Language Skin Editor are used for print-based outputs (Adobe PDF, XHTML, Microsoft XPS, Microsoft Word, Adobe FrameMaker), not for WebHelp or the other online outputs. Those items are intended to set text for context-sensitive cross-references in print output (see Creating Context-Sensitive Cross-References and Editing Text for Context-Sensitive Cross-References).

Note: If you want to make other changes to a skin to affect how it looks in the output (e.g., color, navigation elements), you can edit a regular skin in the Project Organizer (see Editing Skin Settings).