MessagesTranslation

Overview

The Identity Provider software contains by default US English messages.properties file(s) that contain the strings to render messages in the various views included in the software.

Many deployers may want to present these pages in the local language(s) or customize/localize some strings. To translate or adapt the IdP messages and thus support multiple languages the IdP supports translations of the corresponding properties files. The servlet container will then automatically select a matching properties file based on the client's Accept-Languages header as provided by the web browser.

All of these messages used to be packaged into a single file, system/messages/messages.properties. Since version 4.2 they are inside the system.

To e.g. create a German translation of the IdP's error messages strings, copy the default (US English) messages file, to a file named messages_de.properties (see also error messages configuration) and translate/adapt the strings in the new properties file. For example, translate the string idp.title.suffix = Error to idp.title.suffix = Fehler

The IdP will select a language file based on the locale of the browser without additional configuration. Note that Spring (and by extension the IdP) does not support a precedence of languages to fall back to, so the support for full i18n is constrained by that limitation. Also, note that if the browser does not specify a locale to use, the OS default will generally dictate what is selected, so this may or may not be the right answer.

In addition to the default use of the filenames noted above, you can freely change the message files used in conf/services.xml if you prefer that.

Translated Message Properties

These are the already completely translated versions of the messages.properties files available for download. All translations were provided by volunteers from the community. They are listed in the Translation Credits. See Contribute to the Translation Project below how you can contribute yourself.

General Installation Instructions

Download the languages your IdP should support
Copy them into the shibboleth-idp/messages directory. A software upgrade will not touch them, but you will have to manually fetch new versions as they become available.
Best watch this page (login and click on "Watch") to get informed on changes.

You should also consider merging your own customization, such as idp.logo and idp.logo.alt-text.

Important: No deployer should use the text provided for example-tou-1.text as is. You need to replace that text with one that fits your local legal framework.

Identity Provider 4

2022-11-23: Minor update applied to all files below for IdPv4.2 (filename for idp.logo property changed from dummylogo.png to placeholder-logo.png.

Language Code	Language	File Download	Last Update
cs	Czech	messages_cs.properties	2020-02-13
de	German	messages_de.properties	2020-02-13
de_CH	German (Switzerland)	messages_de_CH.properties	2020-02-13
el	Greek	messages_el.properties	2022-07-12
es	Spanish	messages_es.properties	2018-10-25
es_ES	Spanish (Spain)	messages_es_ES.properties	2018-11-01
fr	French	messages_fr.properties	2021-05-26
it	Italian	messages_it.properties	2020-02-13
ja	Japanese	messages_ja.properties	2020-02-12
nl	Dutch	messages_nl.properties	2020-02-13
pl	Polish	messages_pl.properties	2021-05-26
tr	Turkish	messages_tr.properties	2021-05-26
zh_CN	Chinese, Simplified	messages_zh_CN.properties	2020-02-14

Contribute to the Translation Project

Several federation operators created a translation project on the free translation service Zanata. Translations are available in the Shibboleth IdPv3 Translation project (that now also covers IdPv4).

If you just want to download existing translations pick from the files listed above or ask your local federation operator.

If you want to contribute translations for other languages, please:

Go to http://zanata.org/ and create an account
The send your account name to aai@switch.ch and ask to be added as contributor/maintainer for the Shibboleth translations.

That way you'll get access to the translation project.

Once you complete (or correct something in) a translation, please notify aai@switch.ch since the Zanata tool has no built-in notification mechanism. Someone from SWITCHaai will then download the new files via the zanata-cli client, will prepend the correct license text und upload it onto this page. Downloading the file via the Zanata web interface unfortunately results in a wrong character set, not UTF-8.

Please note that access to create attachments on this (or any) page is now limited. If you need to do so and lack that access, you can contact the project to request access.