Saturday, November 15, 2008

Change NetBeans IDE interface language

Several days ago, I downloaded and installed NetBeans 6.5 English version. It is quite a nice IDE. But don't know why the interface is Chinese and I prefer it is in English. Since it is a multilingual version, there should be a way to change it.

Unfortunately, I have checked the program options carefully, again and again, but didn't find how to change the user interface language. OK, have to go a bit search and reading.

In NetBeans FAQ, What are the NetBeans startup parameters (a.k.a command-line options), it tells

--locale language[:country[:variant]] : Use the specified locale.
and, no more. I am not sure about the language [:country[:variant]], so searched again. Finally I came across a blog to find out the approaches.

Open the properties window of NetBeans shortcut, add the following read part at the end of the target, for example:
  • "D:\Program Files\NetBeans 6.5 RC2\bin\netbeans.exe" --locale en:US.

This is for English. Replace the red part by --locale zh:CN for Chinese and --locale ja:JP for Japanese.

Moreover, I found some information on language [:country[:variant]], please go to http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/util/Locale.html and http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2SE/locale/.


Chinese version: 修改NetBeans 6.5的界面语言
Posted by at 11/15/2008 10:42:00 PM
Labels: ,

46 comments:

  1. Anonymous12/03/2008 7:28 PM

    Thanks a lot ! Your post is a winner, he solved a headache in less than 2 minutes ! Hourray for google !

    I hope that regionalization is going to be "in" the program later, instead of being a dumb hack...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wenbin12/03/2008 9:25 PM

    Great it helped you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous12/21/2008 10:29 AM

    Great post! Thanks for uncovering the solution

    ReplyDelete
  4. shibin12/22/2008 12:07 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. shibin12/22/2008 12:08 PM

    Great Post.
    A small typo error
    Japanese language - ja:JP

    ReplyDelete
  6. shibin12/22/2008 1:02 PM

    The above method sometimes results in junk characters.
    I had come across such a problem and here is the solution:
    Theres a file, inside the /etc folder of netbeans directory, called netbeans.conf.
    Inside it you will find the following line:

    netbeans_default_options="-J-Xms32m -J-Xmx128m -J-XX:PermSize=32m -J-XX:MaxPermSize=160m -J-Xverify:none -J-Dapple.laf.useScreenMenuBar=true -J-Duser.language=en -J-Duser.region=US"

    Just change
    -J-Duser.language=ja
    -J-Duser.region=JP

    and it gives the same result.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wenbin12/22/2008 2:33 PM

    Thanks Quinn.

    ReplyDelete
  8. sansy1/16/2009 3:44 PM

    thanks a lot!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous3/14/2009 12:03 AM

    Outstanding!!!! That did the trick. Thanks for posting it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous3/27/2009 1:39 AM

    thank you.

    I hope the netbeans guys can provide an option in the menu!!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. erwan3/28/2009 6:32 PM

    Thanks a lot for sparing me the headaches, my version was in Japanese and I was able to revert it back to english. Thanks !!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous4/25/2009 2:34 PM

    thank you very much! this language thinks is quite simple but keep bugging me a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous6/02/2009 7:15 AM

    thanks man... saved a couple time of research to figure how to do it :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Unknown6/12/2009 6:54 AM

    well I can t find properties window.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous9/02/2009 1:09 PM

    thanks man really helped

    ReplyDelete
  16. vndeveloper9/23/2009 2:00 PM

    Thank you, it works!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous10/01/2009 6:46 PM

    Thanks from Russia! Because when i have downloaded this program, some parts of the menu was in Russian, and some in English. It killed me. But now all in English =)

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous10/14/2009 11:42 PM

    Hi,

    I found that you have to run the cmd again every time when you launch netBean after you close.

    I mean I have to run this command line:
    dirctory where netBean exists --locale en:us
    after I closed netBean.

    Mine is vericon 6.71

    Kwfine

    ReplyDelete
  19. Wenbin10/15/2009 7:51 PM

    Hi, Kwfine

    If you put the -locale en:US in the shortcut, then everytime what you need to do is double click on the shortcut. It is not necessary to run from the command line.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Unknown10/25/2009 12:22 PM

    thanks a lot, great tip

    has anybody posted it as a request for developers???

    ReplyDelete
  21. 111/28/2009 4:19 PM

    thank you! that solved my headache.
    i think it is a dumb thing to force the interface language to your system locale and does not provide the user a way to change it easily.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous12/29/2009 12:46 AM

    Thank you people

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous2/11/2010 4:04 AM

    Very handy!
    Tks!

    Rafael Nunes
    Brazil

    ReplyDelete
  24. Irene Salomo7/05/2010 7:04 PM

    Thanks a lot! It's very helpful for me :)

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous7/06/2010 12:04 PM

    thank you so much, it has been a very very big help!!!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Anonymous7/12/2010 1:59 PM

    2 years later and your post is still helpful!

    ReplyDelete
  27. Matheus Finotti11/29/2010 11:10 AM

    the same problem but from pt-BR to en-US

    Very Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  28. Anonymous12/11/2010 1:10 PM

    hey why is it that my keyboard is messed up when I type something into the java file (ie. all the letters come up differently from what I type)? Thanks in advance.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Anonymous1/01/2011 12:13 AM

    Thank you, dude.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Anonymous1/25/2011 7:17 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Anonymous5/05/2011 4:33 PM

    Thanks a lot!

    ReplyDelete
  32. nihao6/23/2011 11:45 AM

    it didn't work for netbean 7.0

    ReplyDelete
  33. Anonymous8/11/2011 5:31 AM

    It work's with NetBeans 7.0.1.
    10x a lot!

    ReplyDelete
  34. Anonymous8/18/2011 8:29 PM

    Done! Definitely it works!

    Thx a lot!

    ReplyDelete
  35. Anonymous9/27/2011 4:26 PM

    +1000!!

    critical meeting tomorrow, just told I need NetBeans, and my Japanese OS was not going to be nice to me.

    you're my hero!

    ReplyDelete
  36. sabrina11/06/2011 7:53 PM

    Works for me, thanks so much. I'm on JDK 7.0.1. Initially I missed the part where you said to open the shortcut's property window so I thought it wasn't working. But thankfully I read it again! :) I'm on a Chinese OS.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Vasile Borș12/29/2011 2:41 AM

    thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Anonymous1/05/2012 7:24 AM

    thank you!.. ocala@----udistrital.edu.co

    ReplyDelete
  39. Wiseman2/11/2012 7:27 AM

    Nice! Thanks! I've thanked your banner too ;)

    ReplyDelete
  40. Anonymous2/22/2012 10:10 PM

    Thanks very much!!! It's works in netbeans 7.1 (spanish to english)

    ReplyDelete
  41. Anonymous3/27/2012 2:38 AM

    Thank you! Quick and it works:)

    ReplyDelete
  42. Anonymous5/11/2012 7:48 AM

    Wow!!! Incredible!!!

    ReplyDelete
  43. Anonymous1/18/2013 2:53 AM

    With Netbeans 7.2.1 on Ubuntu 12.04 (32bits) installed from .sh script downloaded from netbeans.org.
    Locate the launcher-icon configuration file at:/.local/share/applications/NetBeans IDE 7.2.1
    Edit the file proprieties and add your parameter in the command line: --locale en:US

    ReplyDelete
  44. Leandro Cadete da Silva10/14/2013 8:34 AM

    Very usefull, thanks

    ReplyDelete
  45. Luis Milanese5/13/2014 12:40 PM

    Just to let you know that over 5 years later, this still helped me. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Anonymous3/03/2015 7:55 PM

    It did not work for me:(

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)