Change language settings for local HELP docs?

[Cristobal Vila]

I changed the language settings for app from Spanish to English, in Preferences / General.

But this do not change the language for local Help docs (this remains Spanish)

Is there some way to change this?

(fortunately there is the online help, in English)

Thanks!

[R C-R]

I do not know how it works for the Windows versions but for the Mac versions, the language for the local help docs (among other things) is set in System Preferences > Language & Region. 

I tried to upload an image of that window but got the dreaded -200 error. I will try that again later but in the meantime how it works is you can set several "Preferred languages" in the list on the left side of the window. Whichever is the topmost one is the "primary" language, which will be used to display help topics, menus, dialogs, etc.

It is a 'global' setting, at least as far as help topics are concerned.

[Cristobal Vila]

Hi R C-R

Thanks for your suggestion. I'm on a Mac. I understand what you mean… I have my first preferred Language “Spanish” on that setting. And “English” is the second one.

I prefer do not touch this, since it's a global setting, for the entire system. And there are lot of situations, with other apps, where I need Spanish to be my main/preferred language…

Well, since we have the online help, in English, I will use that, better.

Thanks again! 🙂

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, Cristobal Vila said:

I prefer do not touch this, since it's a global setting, for the entire system. And there are lot of situations, with other apps, where I need Spanish to be my main/preferred language…

I can understand why you would not want to change that. However, there is a way to display the local help topics in English without doing that, but it is a bit of a hack. It is probably not something that you would find useful, but it works like this:

In Finder, navigate to the appropriate index.html file in the Affinity application package. This involves right-clicking on the app & choosing "Show Package Contents," opening the Contents/Resources folder, locating the help bundle file & right-clicking on that to use "Show Package Contents" again, & finally locating the index.html file in that!

So for example, for AP the full file path would be

/Applications/Affinity Photo.app/Contents/Resources/AffinityPhoto.help/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/index.html

Since it is just an html file, if you double-click on it, it will open in the default browser, probably for most Mac users Safari. What you get is (I think!) identical to the online version, except that all links are to the local files. Adding a browser bookmark would make it easily available whenever you wanted to see the local English language version, for example if for some reason you can't access the online one.

It should work for all languages, so it might also be useful as a quick way to compare different local versions in separate browser windows or tabs.

[Cristobal Vila]

Hi R C-R!

Yes, you are right: this works like silk. Perfect! 🙂

Thank you very much, really appreciate your help.

[PaoloT]

I, too, would like to change the Help language locally. While my Mac system is set to Italian, and I appreciate that Serif did translate the apps and support files into my language, I also work in an international environment. My Affinity apps are therefore set into English, and when looking for help for a command I have to look for it in the English Help. It would be great if I could open the Help file matching the app's UI language.

Paolo

 

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, PaoloT said:

It would be great if I could open the Help file matching the app's UI language.

You probably can, with your web browser, by navigating to the Help files that are installed with the product. I can't help you find them, as I'm on Windows.

[PaoloT]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

You probably can, with your web browser, by navigating to the Help files that are installed with the product.

Yes, indeed it can be done, and made permanent (until the next update).

1. Locate the app icon, and right-click on it. Choose the Show Packege Content command.

2. Go to Contents > Resources > AffinityPublisher.help > Contents > Resources.

3. Rename "it.lproj" to something like "it_.lproj". Duplicate "en-US.lproj", and rename it to "it.lproj".

Done. The Italian help now speaks English, with a Bostonian accent.

Paolo

 

[walt.farrell]

50 minutes ago, PaoloT said:

and made permanent (until the next update).

Thanks. It can probably be made permanent by creating a browser bookmark, rather than using the Help menu.

[loukash]

1 hour ago, PaoloT said:

it can be done, and made permanent (until the next update).

You should not be doing this unless you 100% know and understand what you are doing and what the consequences can be.

19 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

It can probably be made permanent by creating a browser bookmark

That's definitely the way to go:

file:///Applications/Affinity%20Designer.app/Contents/Resources/AffinityDesigner.help/Contents/Resources/en-US.lproj/index.html
file:///Applications/Affinity%20Photo.app/Contents/Resources/AffinityDesigner.help/Contents/Resources/en-US.lproj/index.html
file:///Applications/Affinity%20Publisher.app/Contents/Resources/AffinityDesigner.help/Contents/Resources/en-US.lproj/index.html

Or to put it another way:

I'm not a guy who's scared of tinkering with MacOS on pretty low levels, but I definitely don't change internal directory paths of my mission critical applications.