The Pane Application Language

All parts of Mac OS X and many applications of third-party vendors are multi-lingual. This means the user interface of an application can be switched between different languages without having to install special language-specific versions of the program. Under normal circumstances, the language that will be used by an application is determined when launching it. Mac OS X checks the available language support packages embedded in the application and compares it to the user's priority list of preferred languages. The first language in the list which matches a language package available in the application will “win” and will be chosen to become the active language for running the program. Each user can modify her personal priority list at System Preferences > Language & Text > Language by dragging the languages in any order, and adding or removing languages.

TinkerTool System allows you to temporarily ignore your personal language priority list, forcing an application to launch in a specific language, different from your usual preferred one. Neither your language preferences, nor the language packages within the application will be touched. This can be very helpful if you are working in a multi-lingual country or organization. This is also helpful to give remote support to a user which has configured his Mac OS X setup for a language different from yours. You can even run the same application multiple times, using different languages in each instance.

Some applications might not be prepared to run concurrently in the same user session. Conflicts can arise when the multiple instances modify the same configuration files, so you should be careful when changing data. Please check the documentation of the applications for possible information.

Perfom the following steps to launch an application in a specific language:

Open the pane Application Language.
Drag the application from the Finder into the field Application. You can also click the button […] to navigate to the object, or click on the white area to enter the UNIX path of the object.
Select the language clicking on one of the buttons in the list Language to use.
Press the button Launch.

Note that the language list matches the one currently configured in the Language & Text pane of System Preferences. When you edit the list in System Preferencs, you should relaunch TinkerTool System for changes to take effect.

If the application you are launching does not provide support for the language you have selected, the application's standard language will be chosen. This is usually the language the application was originally developed for.