JIRA: Add localization to custom mail template

[Alexander Schüßler]

Hi there,

I am struggling on an optimization I try to implement for my company's JIRA.

Current situation
We have some workflow steps that are not default/usual steps as for instance our bug issues also include a step for the testing and another one for merging the bug fix into production builds.

We would need to send the responsible for the step an automatic mail.
Currently we are doing this by a ScriptRunner snippet using a groovy script.
These are implemented either as listener or as transition post function.
It works but I do not find it a neat solution.

Vision
I would like to create two new JIRA events and build new .vm template files on our server so the native JIRA Notification feature can be used and modified in notification scheme.

However I like to have it localized as well.
Consider the following example from an existing JIRA mail template:

#defaultMailHeaderWithParam("jira.email.assigned.issue.to", $changelogauthor, "#authorlinkkey($issue.assigneeId $linkstyle)")

Myself I now would like to create a new locale like jira.email.assigned.issue.totester and allow to have this translated in English and German.

Issues

1. I can not make it working when modifying the unpacked language .jar file. It will stop JIRA applying the translation at all, so I am currently unable to do this.
   I don't know what I am doing wrong - or if this is possible this way at all.
2. A further inconvenience here is that I need to edit lots of files in JIRA installation directory. Means that any updates of the application will cause this getting lost. We do usually update JIRA once a year only, but anyway.

...and now?
Is there maybe a better solution to accomplish this idea? Do I maybe need to create a simple JIRA plugin for this purpose? Or should I add a new feature request to Atlassians's own JIRA?

Any suggestions / support will be appreciated.

Thank you and Cheers

Alex