Default locale

boveDAM is a bilingual platform supporting English (en-US) and Spanish (es-MX). Every portal has a default locale — the language used to render the portal interface when a visitor arrives with no language preference detected. Understanding how the default locale works helps you build portals that feel native to your intended audience from the very first visit.

What the default locale controls

The default locale determines the language of all portal interface elements shown to a visitor: navigation labels, download button text, section headings that come from the system (like the default section names), date formats, and any instructional copy within the portal.

Content you write manually — portal names, descriptions, folder names, brand module text — is not automatically translated. If you want those elements to appear in a specific language, write them in that language when you create or edit them. The default locale only controls the surrounding interface chrome, not the content you author.

Setting the default locale to es-MX is the right choice for a portal whose primary audience is Spanish-speaking: for example, a portal named "Kit de marca — Verano 2026" sent to a client team in Mexico City. Setting it to en-US is appropriate for an English-speaking client, or for any portal whose audience is mixed and where English is the safer default.

How it interacts with the workspace default

Your workspace has its own default locale setting, configured in workspace settings at app.bovedam.com. When you create a new portal, it inherits the workspace default locale automatically.

You can override the locale on a per-portal basis at any time. The per-portal setting is independent — changing the workspace default later does not affect portals that already have an explicit locale set. It only applies to newly created portals going forward.

The relationship in plain terms:

• Workspace default locale → applied to new portals at creation time
• Per-portal locale → overrides the workspace default for that specific portal
• Visitor browser preference → takes priority over both, when detected

When to change a portal's locale

Change the per-portal locale when:

• The portal's primary audience speaks a different language than your workspace default. If your workspace is set to en-US but you are building a portal for a client whose team works in Spanish, set that portal to es-MX.
• You are creating a dedicated bilingual portal and have intentionally authored all content in a specific language.
• You are testing how the portal reads for a client before sending the link.

Locale resolution priority

When a visitor opens a portal, boveDAM resolves the display language using the following priority order:

1. Visitor's explicit preference — if the visitor has previously selected a language in boveDAM (for example, by switching the interface language in their account), that preference is used first
2. Visitor's browser language — if the browser reports a preferred language that matches one of boveDAM's supported locales (en-US or es-MX), that language is used
3. Portal default locale — if no visitor preference is detected, the portal's configured default locale is used
4. Workspace default locale — fallback if the portal has no explicit locale set

In practice, most visitors reach a portal without a boveDAM account and without a prior preference, so the portal default locale is what they will see. Setting it intentionally is worth the two seconds it takes.

To set the default locale, open the portal in the editor, go to Settings, and choose the locale under Language. See Portal anatomy for an overview of the settings panel.