Localizing a Form

You can change the structure of a form depending on the locale. For example, you can include different address fields, such as state or province, depending on the country. To localize the form structure, you can create different form definitions for each locale. These form definitions have the same name, but a different structure or different fields for different locales.

In your cartridge, create a forms/default folder for the standard locale and then separate folders that are named for each locale of the form. Store a different form definition in each locale folder. If a locale doesn't have a separate folder, the default form definition is used.

forms
	default
		billingaddress.xml
	it_IT
		billingaddress.xml
	ja_JP
	billingaddress.xml

Localizing Strings Within Simple Forms

You can use resource strings directly from a form. The following example is of the loginform.isml that logs customers into the site. In this case, the form uses the label.input.login.email resource string identifier.

<form action="${pdict.actionUrl}" class="login" method="POST" name="login-form">
    <div class="form-group required">
        <label class="form-control-label" for="login-form-email">
            ${Resource.msg('label.input.login.email', 'login', null)}
        </label>
        <input type="email" id="login-form-email" class="form-control" name="loginEmail" value="${pdict.userName}">
        <div class="form-control-feedback"></div>
    </div>

Depending on the locale, this resource identifier resolves to different values

In the English app_storefront_base/cartridge/templates/resources/login.properties file:

label.input.login.email=Email

label.input.login.email=E-mail

Localizing Strings Within Complex Forms

All form strings can be replaced with resource strings. Resource strings for forms are located by default in the forms.properties file for your cartridge and referenced from the form definition file. Add files with the name forms_locale_.properties to add localized strings. For example, add a forms_it_IT.properties file for an Italian version of the same properties. You can have different fields for the form, depending on the locale. Make sure that the strings for those fields are included in the localized version of the properties files.

Example: Localizing Labels and Error Messages

The following form definition file defines a form to enter contact information. This example doesn't show the entire form definition, just some of the fields that use localized strings for labels and error messages. You can find this file as the contactus.xml form in the SiteGenesis app_storefront_core cartridge.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<form xmlns="http://www.demandware.com/xml/form/2008-04-19">
	
	<field formid="firstname" label="contactus.firstname.label" type="string" mandatory="true" binding="firstName" max-length="50"/>
	<field formid="lastname" label="contactus.lastname.label" type="string" mandatory="true" binding="lastName" max-length="50"/>
	<field formid="email" label="contactus.email.label" type="string" mandatory="true"  parse-error="contactus.email.parse-error" />	

##############################################
# Template name: forms/contactus
##############################################
contactus.firstname.label=First Name
contactus.lastname.label=Last Name
contactus.email.label=Email
contactus.email.parse-error=The email address is invalid.

##############################################
# Template name: forms/contactus
##############################################
contactus.firstname.label=Nome
contactus.lastname.label=Cognome
contactus.email.label=Email
contactus.email.parse-error=L'indirizzo email non è valido.