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The International Pane |
Note: This page does not apply to Mac OS X version 10.3 (Panther). If you are using an operating system between version 10.3 and 10.3.9, please see a different page.
Mac OS X uses one of the most advanced technologies to display the user interface in different languages. The operating system is multi-lingual, and there is only one worldwide version. The OS software is always identical, no matter in which country it is published, only the printed manuals are different.
However, there are some users that don't need a multi-lingual system. If you are using a preinstalled version of Mac OS X, or if Mac OS X was manually installed with default settings, all available language packages are stored on the hard disk, consuming space. You can remove unwanted language packages with TinkerTool System to reclaim this storage space. The same applies to third-party applications that were installed later: Because user-friendly applications are typically installed by a simple "drag and drop" operation in the Finder, there is no dialog which would ask what language support packages you want to omit. TinkerTool System can remove unwanted language packages in third-party applications as well.
To remove the support files for unwanted language packages, select all languages you want to delete in the list Languages to remove. Languages which are detected as having been installed during the initial system installation are printed in bold type. Note that your system may contain additional language packages in third-party applications. For example, you may have software installed that provides language support for Canadian English, although Mac OS X itself does not come with Canadian English support files. If you want to make sure that these third-party language support files are removed as well, you'll have to set the respective checkmarks although they aren't printed in bold.
If you press the button Select OS-installed languages, all languages in bold type (except your current main language) will be selected automatically. You can also remove all checkmarks with the button Select none, or select all language packages with the button Select all.
Every application contains a built-in language, the language the application has been initially developed for. It is not possible to remove this development language without damaging the respective application. For this reason, TinkerTool System automatically avoids to remove the special development language packages in each application, even if you have selected them in the list of languages to remove. Most applications made by Apple use "common English" as their built-in language. Other components may use development languages different from English.
TinkerTool System will only remove language support packages from one single volume or from one single folder and all included subfolders. To select the top folder where the tool should begin removing language packages, enter the name of the folder (or volume) in the Remove from folder or volume field. You can alternatively press the button […] to choose a folder from a list, or drag and drop a folder from the Finder into the field. Mac OS X identifies the system volume by the name "/".
If you like to remove certain language support files for the international user interfaces of applications but at the same time want to keep Mac OS X's linguistic dictionaries of the selected languages, make sure the checkmark Don't remove spell checker and summary dictionaries is set. For example you could decide to delete all Esperanto user interfaces, but still might want to use the Esperanto spell checker. If you want to remove those dictionaries as well, uncheck the option.
There is a simple and an advanced way to remove language packages: Applications can contain additional software components, like plug-ins, program frameworks, or online documentation, often nested several levels deep. If the option Don't remove languages from components integrated into applications is set, TinkerTool System will not completely traverse all those embedded parts, but will only remove language support files from the uppermost level in each application. This is the simpler and "shallow" way of removing language packages, also used by the Finder when disabling languages via its Get Info panel. For a complete removal of language support files, the checkmark must not be set.
Please note that a few applications may not expect that language support packages at deeper integration levels can be removed, although such a behavior is against the software design guidelines of Mac OS X. In this rare case, update and self-repair features of such applications will no longer work correctly and the affected programs must be reinstalled. If you must use an application with such a problem, it is recommended to enable the option Don't remove languages from components integrated into applications.
The option Don't touch Adobe® applications can be used to exclude programs made by Adobe® Systems from any manipulation of language packages. Although TinkerTool System takes greatest to care to analyze which packages are needed and which are not, some specific versions of Adobe® applications contain technologies which may consider the removal of language packages an "unauthorized manipulation". In this case, the update or self-heal features may no longer work as expected. If you want to make absolutely sure that the removal of language packages cannot conflict with any of Adobe's technologies, you can enable this option.
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger also contains PostScript® Printer Descriptions (PPD files) in several translated versions. For technical reasons, these files are not packaged in the usual way which Apple actually requires in the Software Design Guidelines for Mac OS X. TinkerTool System will regard the files as being normal data files which shouldn't be touched. If you enable the option Additionally remove translated PostScript® Printer Descriptions, all PPD files for the selected languages that have been installed into Mac OS X's default folders for printer support files will be considered for deletion as well.
If the system adminstrator has installed additional PPD files next to Apple's official PostScript® support, s/he alone is responsible that translated versions have been placed in the correct language folders. For example, if the administrator has put a Spanish file into the French PPD folder and TinkerTool System is told to delete French PPD files, the misplaced Spanish PPD file will be considered a French file and will be removed.
Note to users of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and later: Leopard and later versions of Mac OS X use different printer description files which are no longer separated into different language parts. For this reason, translated PPDs do not exist any longer, and the option Additionally remove translated PostScript® Printer Descriptions cannot be used.
TinkerTool System can additionally compute how much storage you will be saving when removing language support packages. To do this, set a checkmark at the option Compute storage reduction statistics. Note that the collection of the required data is complex, so this step will slow down the pre-processing phase significantly. The information will be displayed in the dialog panel which is opened before you can eventually decide whether to perform the deletion or not (see below).
To begin the search for language packages press the button Delete selected packages…. The tool will start with an analysis of the language support files first, nothing is deleted immediately. Processing all language packages will take a while. You can abort this procedure with the STOP button.
After the pre-processing is complete, the application will open a report sheet containing two different areas. You will have a final chance to decide whether you are going to actually delete the selected language packages. The upper part of the panel contains a copy of the full report TinkerTool System has collected during the pre-processing phase. You can save this report to file by pressing the button Save report….
The lower part of the window lists all language packages which are about to be deleted. If you activated the computation of storage reduction statistics, the number of objects and their sizes will be shown additionally. Packages are represented by their BSD paths. Note that you cannot deselect specific language packages or package objects from deletion. To leave all files untouched, press the button Cancel. To delete all packages listed in the table, press the button Remove.
Warning to software developers: TinkerTool System tries to
only remove language support files that are part of Mac OS X bundles. Under
normal circumstances this will include compiled software packages but not isolated
lproj folders in source code directories. This means this feature will remove
language support files from built products but not from project sources.
However, there are circumstances in which your software development environment
may create project directory structures for your source files which
strongly resemble standard bundles. In this case, TinkerTool
System may no longer be capable of differentiating between built products and
source code, so localized project components of your source may be deleted.