Opening FileWave Central (Admin) in a Specific Language (macOS)

What

When you install FileWave Admin, it will automatically use the language you have set on your workstation (if not available, it will default to English). If you want to change FileWave to run in another language, you have to launch Central/Admin with an argument that specifies the desired language. In this article, we will show you how to make a Shortcut on macOS that will launch the Admin in your preferred language automatically.

When/Why

FileWave Central (Admin) doesn’t currently have the option to change Language preference in the application itself. The current language options are English, German, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese (Traditional & Simplified).

How

If you want to open the FileWave Central/Admin Application in a different Language, you would use the following command to launch. In this article, we’re going to automate the process so it opens with your preferred language every time using Shortcuts (formerly Workflow).

/Applications/FileWave/FileWave\ Admin.app/Contents/MacOS/FileWave\ Admin --lang us_EN

In FileWave 15.4.0, the above line will fail to launch the chosen language as is. See below shortcut example for alternate script.

Available Language Options:

English – en_GB or en_US
German – de_DE
Korean – ko_KR
Japanese – ja_JP
Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) – zh_TW or zh_CN

Requirements:

macOS Monterey or newer
Shortcuts Application (System Application)
FileWave Admin

Creating the Shortcut

Open the Shortcuts Application on a macOS machine running Monterey or newer (macOS 12).
In the Menu, under File, select New Shortcut.
Name the Shortcut. In this example, we’re using “FW Admin (EN)”.
Select Run Shell Script as the action.
Insert the command below with your preferred language. We’re using US English in this example.
```
/Applications/FileWave/FileWave\ Admin.app/Contents/MacOS/FileWave\ Admin --lang us_EN & 
exit 0
```
In, 15.4.0 try the following script instead. Example using German, but alter the temp_locale parameter as required:

#!/bin/zsh

temp_locale="de_DE"

current_user=$(stat -f%Su /dev/console)
current_locale=$(defaults read /Users/${current_user}/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist AppleLocale)

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Set AppleLocale '$temp_locale'' /Users/${current_user}/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist

/Applications/FileWave/FileWave\ Admin.app/Contents/MacOS/FileWave\ Admin &

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Set AppleLocale '$current_locale'' /Users/${current_user}/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist

exit 0

Under the Shortcut Details tab (ℹ️), you have options on how to run the Shortcut. I’ve pinned it to the Menu Bar and created a keyboard shortcut to access FileWave Central/Admin quickly.

You’re all set!