Localise ArcGIS Server Server Object Extension (SOE) service response messages and other localisable Strings

ArcGIS for INSPIRE network services support the multi-linguality feature defined in the TG documents of the View and Feature Download Services. The system administrator can add European member state languages to the ArcGIS for INSPIRE Server extension.

The messages are currently available in English, French, Spanish and German. To localise to other languages, it will be necessary to adjust resource bundles. Resource bundles are packages that store messages in a single location, and are independent of the compiled code. Resource bundles provide the capability for a user to add a new language to a system without recompiling the software. The resource bundle files are packed into jar files (*.jar). These jar files are zip files that may contain a folder structure inside. It is suggested users use a proper utility to gain access to the jar files. Most of the messages are bundled in a single jar archive called a4i-ags-messages.jar.

For the ArcGIS for INSPIRE Desktop Extension this file can usually be found here: c:\Program Files (x86)\ArcGIS\Desktop10.1\java\lib\ext\a4i-ags-messages.jar\

For the ArcGIS for INSPIRE Server Extension this file can be found inside of the ArcGIS for INSPIRE Server Object Extension file, which usually can be found here: c:\arcgisserver\config-store\extns\arcgis-for-inspire.soe. The *.soe file also represents a zip file; see path/Install/a4i-ags-messages.jar inside of this file.

Steps to follow for localising the SOE service messages are described below:

1. After locating the a4i-ags-messages.jar as described above, make a backup copy of this file.
2. Extract the soe_messages*.properties file from the a4i-ags-messages.jar using an extraction utility.
3. In your extracted a4i-ags-messages directory, you can add a new resource file that has the language code and variant suffix for the language you want to add. If you want to support the Polish language, you need to add the file soe_messages_pl.properties. You can do this by copying the original English file, renaming it with the Polish suffix, and then translating the strings in that file.
4. Once you have added all the new language files to the a4i-ags-messages directory, re-bundle the a4i-ags-messages file into the .jar format.
5. Copy the new a4i-ags-messages.jar file to the server location mentioned above.

Other localisable files and their meanings