Localizing the interface of a DITA Map to WebHelp Classic output: Modifying Existing Strings

Static labels used in the WebHelp output are stored in translation files that have the strings-lang1-lang2.xml name format, where lang1 and lang2 are ISO language codes. For example, the US English labels are kept in the strings-en-us.xml file.

These translation files are collected from two locations:

[DITA-OT DIR]/xsl/common folder - The DITA Open Toolkit's default translations (generated text for note, fig, and table elements).
[DITA-OT DIR]/plugins/com.oxygenxml.webhelp.classic/oxygen-webhelp/resources/localization folder - These translations are contributed by the WebHelp plugin and extend the default ones provided by DITA-OT. The labels defined in this folder take precedence over the DITA-OT defaults.

There are two major reasons you may want to use modify the translation files: to modify the existing strings or to translate to a new language.

To modify the generated text for WebHelp transformations, you need to create a DITA-OT extension plugin that uses the dita.xsl.messages extension point. The following procedure is for changing English labels, but you can adapt it for any language:

Create a com.oxygenxml.webhelp.localization plugin directory inside the [DITA-OT DIR]/plugins/ location.

Create a plugin.xml file inside that com.oxygenxml.webhelp.localization directory with the following content:

<plugin id="com.oxygenxml.webhelp.localization">
						<require plugin="com.oxygenxml.webhelp.classic"/>
						<require plugin="com.oxygenxml.webhelp.responsive"/>
						
						<feature extension="dita.xsl.strings" file="webhelp-extension-strings.xml"/>
						</plugin>

Create a webhelp-extension-strings.xml file with the following content:

<langlist>
						<lang xml:lang="en"    filename="strings-en-us.xml"/>
						<lang xml:lang="en-us"    filename="strings-en-us.xml"/>
						</langlist>

Copy the strings you want to change from the translation files to the strings-en-us.xml file. Make sure you leave the name attribute unchanged because this is the key used to look up the string. A sample content might be:
```
<strings xml:lang="en-US">
						<str name="Figure">Fig</str>
						<str name="Draft comment">ADDRESS THIS DRAFT COMMENT</str>
						</strings>
```
Within oXygen XML Editor, use the Run DITA-OT Integrator transformation scenario found in the DITA Map section in the Configure Transformation Scenario(s) dialog box.
In the [DITA-OT DIR]/bin directory of the DITA Open Toolkit, run one of the following scripts, depending on your operating system:
- Windows: [DITA-OT DIR]/bin/dita.bat --install
- Linux: [DITA-OT DIR]/bin/dita.sh --install