Java Cookbook, Second Edition

Problem

You want to internationalize an entire Menu.

Solution

Get the Menu's label, and each MenuItem's label, from a ResourceBundle.

Discussion

Fetching a single menu item is the same as fetching a button:

rb = getResourceBundle("Widgets"); try { label = rb.getString("exitMenu.label"); } catch (MissingResourceException e) { label="Exit"; } // fallback someMenu.add(new JMenuItem(label));

This is a lot of code, so we typically consolidate it in convenience routines (see Recipe 15.4). Here is sample code, using our convenience routines:

JMenu fm = mkMenu(rb, "file"); fm.add(mkMenuItem(rb, "file", "open")); fm.add(mkMenuItem(rb, "file", "new")); fm.add(mkMenuItem(rb, "file", "save")); fm.add(mkMenuItem(rb, "file", "exit")); mb.add(fm); Menu um = mkMenu(rb, "edit"); um.add(mkMenuItem(rb, "edit", "copy")); um.add(mkMenuItem(rb, "edit", "paste")); mb.add(um);