Question

It used to be so easy in Leopard via the information dialog one could set any application to start in the desired language. Some programs like Things or the Adobe Creative Suite are simply more effective in english. I want to have this feature back - but how…?

Answer 1

If you only want to do it occasionally, then look at the LaunchApp Plugin.

If you want to set it on a more permanent basis, run this script in a terminal window (a Terminal Window from /Applications/Utilities/Terminal):

defaults write $(mdls -name kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier -raw /Applications/Path\ to\ App.app) AppleLanguages "(de, en)"

Where you replace the path to your application (remember to escape spaces with a backslash) and the language codes with whatever you are looking for. After running this script, the application will always launch in whatever language you've specified first (assuming that language exists).

If you ever want to remove the preference, use:

defaults delete $(mdls -name kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier -raw /Applications/Path\ to\ App.app) AppleLanguages

Answer 2

One could manually remove all the other languages of an application by right-clicking it > show package content < and remove all unwanted languages.

But this is far of from an elegant solution. :(

Answer 3

Removing languages from an application package doesn't always seem to work. I've several apps that didn't work properly afterwards - strange behaviour and such.

But yeah, me too, I'd REALLY like to know a proper way to enable/disable languages of an application in Snow Leopard, preferably the Leopard way.

Answer 4

SIMPLY SOLUTION
There’s now an Application which
which handles the task elegantly; you
can even set the language permanently:

Language Switcher:
http://www.tj-hd.co.uk/en-gb/languageswitcher/