Simple phrase substitution in UI

You can give other names to things users see in the user interface.

For example, you can rename "Documents" and "Discussions" to "Articles" and "Conversations."

By using the Admin Console, you can make the substitutions in a simple way for the most common terms.

Note: Because your phrase substitutions are part of your theme, they are overridden if you change your site's theme. When you upgrade, they are overwritten and you have to recreate them.
Fastpath: Admin Console: System > Settings > Phrase Substitutions
Note: This topic describes how to make simple phrase substitutions. For more advanced use of the feature, see Advanced phrase substitution in UI.

How it works

All of your substitutions are made at run time. That is, the application keeps track of what word or phrase you want displayed, then inserts your phrase for the default phrase when someone views a page that includes the phrase. The default phrases themselves come from internationalization (i18n) properties files used for localization. Also, your substitutions are associated with a theme. That means that you can make your substitutions globally or by mapping the change to a particular part of the user interface.

In the backend, your substitutions are remembered as "substitution rules" that use regular expressions. The rules give you a way to fine tune the substitutions to meet your needs.

Making simple substitutions

You can substitute common phrases that are predefined. The simple substitution mechanism is designed to account for upper- and lower-case versions of the phrases. However, there are some aspects of the change it doesn't account for, for example, a change to an article that would precede the word. Substituting "article" for "document" would leave awkward constructions in English, such as "Create a article or upload a file" (where you'd want "Create an article or upload a file"). To review the outcome of the change you're making, click View Rules to see the rules page, where you can get a preview (you need to save your changes first).

Note: You should always test your changes on an instance of the application that people aren't currently using. That way, you can work things out before the changes impact the work of users.

To define simple rules:

  1. In the Admin Console, go to System > Settings > Phrase Substitutions.
  2. Choose the theme that the substitution should be a part of and a locale in which the substitution should occur. Beneath these selections you can see a list of the phrases you can make substitutions for.
  3. If the phrase you want to change is listed on the far left side, enter your alternatives for singular and plural versions of the phrase.
  4. Click Save to make the substitution.
    Note: You don't need to restart the application or server for the change to take affect
After you save the rule, you can view the rules on the Phrase Substitutions page and see the details of the substitution rule you're creating.
Simple Phrase Substitutions

You won't see the substitution in effect until you assign the theme you select to a part of the user interface.