GWT i18n Message Properties does not Display special Character like ß

Question

I use GWT i18n Messages to translate messages:

@DefaultLocale(\"en\")
public interface Messages extends com.google.gwt.i18n.client.Messages {

    @DefaultMessag         


        

Answer 1

This is a problem with the way Eclipse handles properties files. You can set the whole workspace to UTF-8, it will still treat properties files as ISO 8859-1 - because that's the default/expected encoding. However, GWT uses an enhanced properties file format that uses UTF-8 directly (without the need for escaping the characters).

You have to override this setting separately:

You can change the default encoding for all *.properties files to UTF-8 there (don't forget to hit the Update button).

But please note that this will mean treating all properties files as UTF-8. So unless you are sure this will not break anything, I'd narrow down the file association for example to *Messages.properties files (if all your translation files have the Messages suffix). Or just use a different editor for editing the properties files.