RUIPropertiesLibrary stereotype

You set up a Rich UI properties library (stereotype RUIPropertiesLibrary) if you wish to retrieve displayable text from external files rather than hard-coding the text in your Rich UI application. The overall mechanism is described in Use of properties files for displayable text. You can also use an implicit function in a Rich UI properties library to substitute values in any string.

Here is an example of a Rich UI properties library:

Library myLibrary type RUIPropertiesLibrary {propertiesFile="myFile")
   entryForInputRequired STRING;
   entryForOthers STRING;
   someText STRING;
end

Any value assigned directly in a declaration (for example, someText String = "Click!";) has no effect. Every runtime value comes from an external file, with one exception: if the file does not include a particular entry (for example, if the file does not include an entry for someText), the value at run time is the string equivalent of the variable name (for example, "someText").

propertiesFile property

The propertiesFile property refers to the root name of the file. The file (or files, if multiple translations are available) must reside directly in the project's WebContent/properties directory. Do not include any of the following details in the root name:

Path information such as "properties/myFile"
Hyphens
Translation-specific information such "en_US"
The file extension, which is necessarily properties

The default value for propertiesFile is the name of the library; in this case, "myLibrary".

Function getMessage

Every RUI properties library implicitly includes the function getMessage, which lets you add inserts when selecting a message from the properties file or from a string in your code. For example, the following message in a properties file requires two inserts:

someText=Promote {0} in the {1} department

Here is example code that writes the string "Promote Jeff in the Sales department" to a label:

employeeName, departmentName String;
employeeName = "Jeff";
departmentName = "Sales";

myLabel TextLabel {text = 
   myLibrary.getMessage(myLibrary.someText, [employeeName, departmentName]);

An alternative invocation has the same effect as the previous one but does not access a properties file:

myMessage STRING = "Promote {0} in the {1} department";
myLabel TextLabel {text = 
   myLibrary.getMessage(myMessage, [employeeName, departmentName]);

Here is the function signature:

getMessage(baseMessage STRING in, inserts STRING[] in) returns (fullMessage STRING);

baseMessage: A string or a field in an RUI properties library.
inserts: An array of strings, with the first element providing an insert for the placeholder {0}, the second providing an insert for the placeholder {1}, and so on.
fullMessage: The base message with as many placeholders resolved as possible

The inserts are in ascending order, starting at 0, and the placeholders in the message may be in any order and do not need to be in sequence. If an insert does not match a placeholder by number, the insert is unused. If a placeholder is unresolved, the placeholder itself is in the returned message. For example, the returned message is "Promote Jeff in the {1} department" in the following case:

employeeName STRING = "Jeff";
myMessage STRING = "Promote {0} in the {1} department";
myLabel TextLabel {text = 
   myLibrary.getMessage(myMessage, [employeeName]);

You cannot use the function getMessage when overriding a validation or formatting message. You cannot pass inserts to such a message.