Languages and locales

One block declares every language the installer carries and every string in them. It is written locale-first, because a translator owns a locale; the compiler transposes it into one LangString per name. Every name has to appear in every locale — NSIS expands a missing one to nothing, which is a blank label on one machine in one country.

Usage languages { locales = { <Locale> = { <name> = <string>, … }, … }, ask = { … } } · a read is lang.<name>

languages {
  locales = {
    English = { greeting = "Welcome", bye = "Done" },
    German  = { greeting = "Willkommen", bye = "Fertig" },
  },
  ask = {
    title = "Choose a language",
    remember = { root = "HKCU", key = "Software/Example", value = "Language" },
  },
}

installer {
  page.instFiles {},
  section("Core", function()
    detailPrint(lang.greeting)
  end),
}

A read also works where the value has to be known while building, such as a section’s name or description, or a page’s text: it is $(name), and NSIS picks the locale when the installer runs. So section("!" .. lang.docs, …) is Section "!$(docs)", a bold section named in the running language.

Built-in language strings

NSIS’s own strings, the $(^…) ones such as $(^Name) and $(^NameDA), are under lang.builtin. Every installer has all of them, translated by the language file, so none is declared. That is also why builtin is not a name a locale can declare.

Usage lang.builtin.<name>, with the names from NSIS’s Source/lang.cpp

attributes { name = "Example" }

installer {
  section("Core", function()
    writeReg(HKLM, "Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Uninstall/" .. lang.builtin.Name,
      "DisplayName", lang.builtin.Name)
  end),
}

The language dialog

ask is MUI_LANGDLL_DISPLAY and its settings. Present it and the compiler writes the dialog into .onInit, the ReserveFile above it, and MUI_UNGETLANGUAGE into un.onInit — none of which is spellable, and none of which you can put in the wrong place.

MUI2	Installua
MUI_LANGDLL_WINDOWTITLE	ask = { title = … }
MUI_LANGDLL_INFO	ask = { info = … }
MUI_LANGDLL_ALLLANGUAGES	ask = { allLanguages = true }
MUI_LANGDLL_ALWAYSSHOW	ask = { alwaysShow = true }
MUI_LANGDLL_REGISTRY_*	ask = { remember = { root = …, key = …, value = … } }

IfRtlLanguage

True when the running language is written right to left.

Usage rtlLanguage() → boolean

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