Dynamic menus

We use struts menu for several menus on one of our sites.  Currently, we are using the standard menu-config.xml to describe the menu and a standard properties file to provide the text displayed in the menu (i.e., we have a property name in the title and tooltip attributes of the <Item> and the displayed value comes from the associated properties file). 

We now need the ability to modify the menu’s text displayed on-the-fly (e.g., we may need to add a German version of a menu title).  Obviously, we can programmatically rewrite the properties file, but I would assume that doesn’t cause the file to be re-read.  It appears that Struts-Menu uses Struts MessageResources  (instead of Java property classes) and that there are methods to add new values to the MessageResources (since all of the different language versions are kept in a single file—unlike java property files).  What I don’t know if these message resources are singletons.  That is, if I get the MessageResource and change it, is that reflected in what the menu displays the next time around or did I just change my local copy.

Perhaps there is another way to do this.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  Has anyone done anything similar?

Any help would be appreciated.

Scott