Internationalization and Localization Guide¶

Last updated on May 24 2023.

Introduction¶

This document explains how Inuvika handles internationalization and localization in the OVD Enterprise solution.

OVD is translated into many languages and is open to support translations for other languages. It is a solution to access desktops and applications and the client may specify the required language for the user session. The various operating systems and applications contained within the OVD infrastructure must also support the specified language.

Keyboard mapping between clients and servers is supported and allows the user to specify the keyboard mapping to be used for a given session. OVD also supports Unicode IME input.

Inuvika OVD translations¶

Two components of an OVD farm are translated: the OVD Administration Console (OAC) and the client software.

OVD Administration Console (OAC)¶

The default behavior of the OAC is to detect the client's browser language. However, it is also possible to configure the language manually: from the "Configuration" page, go into "System settings" and change the "OAC language" option.

Important

After setting the language, the console may still be in English. This is most likely because the Linux server system hosting your OVD Session Manager (OSM) does not support the new language. You must add the language support and then restart the HTTP server. Each Linux distribution has his own method to manage language support. For instance, on Ubuntu systems there is a language-pack-$LANG package to install.

On the technical side, the OSM translations are provided by the inuvika-ovd-l10n package. This package contains both client and administration console translations in GNU Gettext files.

OVD User Configuration (OUC)¶

The default behavior of the OUC is to detect the client's browser language. It is also possible to configure the language manually using the dropdown in the top right of the toolbar.

Important

After setting the language, the console may still be in English. This is most likely because the Linux server system hosting your OVD Session Manager (OSM) does not support the language.

You must add the language support and then restart the HTTP server. Each Linux distribution has its own method to manage language support. For instance, on Ubuntu systems there is a language-pack-$LANG package to install.

OVD Web Access (OWA)¶

When the initial connection occurs, the OWA detects the client language from its browser settings. But you can modify it by clicking on "Advanced Settings" and changing the "Language" option. When the option is manually set by the user, it is stored in a COOKIE and is re-used to determine the selected language for subsequent connections.

The OWA uses the same translation system as the OAC so you may look at the OAC note section if you encounter any problems.

Inuvika Enterprise Desktop Client (EDC)¶

When the EDC starts up, it detects the system language and applies the translations if possible. It is also possible to modify the language setting manually by clicking on "More options" and setting the "Language" option.

When the option is manually set by the user, the selected language is saved in a configuration file to keep your setting for the next launch of the EDC. It is also possible to configure the client language by editing the setting file.

OVD Application Server (OAS)¶

In order to select different languages from Inuvika clients, the language must first be supported by the OAS operating system.

By default, both Windows and Linux provide English language support. Depending on how the system was installed, they can support other languages out-of-the-box and once installed, it is still possible to add support for other languages. The process for doing so is different for both Linux and Windows.

Linux¶

Linux is a complete multilingual Operating System. The packaging system provides translation packs for both system and applications.

To install language support, you need to install some additional packages.

On Ubuntu¶

^$
sudo apt-get install language-pack-$LANG

To have full language support for all applications, there are some other packages to install.

^$
sudo apt-get install language-pack-$LANG \
                     language-support-$LANG \
                     language-pack-gnome-$LANG

On RHEL/CentOS 7¶

The language support is installed by default. Please make sure the fonts used for the default language are correctly installed, especially for Asian support.

Restarting Apache¶

Once the language is installed the Apache service must be restarted:

^$
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Windows¶

The Microsoft Windows Server Operating System is usually installed in a specific language but alternative languages may be installed.

The process is different for each version of Windows Server but, for all systems, you must get MUI language packs from the Microsoft website.

For Windows Server 2019/2022, open Windows Settings. Go to Time & language → Language. Select Add a language. Browse to the language you would like to install and select it.
For Windows Server 2016, open Windows Settings. Go to Time & language → Region and Language. Select Add a language. Browse to the language you would like to install and select it.
For Windows Server 2012 R2, open the Control Panel. Go to Clock, Language, and Region → Language Select Add a language. Browse to the language you would like to install and select it.

Applications¶

On Microsoft Windows, each application manages its own internationalization system. Some applications can be installed in multilingual mode whereas others support only one language.

For instance, Microsoft Office includes only one language by default after the installation. But you can add language packs separately. The process is the same with many other applications.

Keyboards Layouts¶

Inuvika supports two types of input methods: scancode and unicode.

Scancode¶

Scancode is a database where, for all keyboard layouts, each keyboard key has a different code. So the client sends the keyboard layout identifier at the beginning of the session and transforms each keyboard input key into a scancode that is sent to the RDP server.

The problem with this method is that each client and server must to know the specifications of every existing keyboard layout in the world. OVD provides support for a set of the most popular keyboards.

Unicode¶

Unicode is an alternative method that sends unicode characters to the client instead of keyboard key codes.

This method is the default method used in OVD.

Choosing the input method and/or the keyboard layout¶

By default, both the EDC and the OWA use the unicode method. With the scancode method, the keyboard layout is auto-detected in the system. It is possible to specify the settings manually by clicking on "Advanced Settings" and changing the "Keyboard layout" option on the OVD Client.

The chosen keyboard layout is stored in the default configuration file for the EDC (default.conf) and in a Cookie for the OWA.

If you want to use the scancode method, you need to enable it on your EDC and/or OWA. To do that, you need to set the input-method = scancode option in the configuration file for the EDC configuration, or uncomment the define('RDP_INPUT_METHOD', 'scancode'); line in the config.inc.php file for the OWA.