Right, I'm creating a website for our business, I want it bilingual, the users must be able to select a language either via a link or by a drop down etc. Need 2 languages. English & Welsh *groan* I was thinking if I could hold all the text for the site in flat files or something then link to them? Eg <? PHP Include ....etc content\$lang$\page1.txt> where $lang$ would be ENG or WSH or something? Anyway, I've tried looking for scripts etc on the web to no avail, most of the things that come anywhere near are intertwined with bloggers etc which I won't be needing. any help is muchos gracias
User loads website (index.php) If cookie is set, go to (say) main.php and use cookie if no cookie: User selects language (lang.php) Cookie is set holding preference User sent to main page Site then uses cookie value to include necessary files Preference is stored for next time user visits assuming visitor doesnt clear cache/cookies index.php : PHP: if(!$_COOKIE['language']) { //click here for english or here for welsh ->lang.php } else { header (Location: "http://www.yoursite.com/main.php"); } lang.php: PHP: if($_GET['lang'] == 'eng' || $_GET['lang'] == 'wsh') { setcookie("language", $_GET['lang'], time()+31536000, "/", ".yoursite.com", 0); } else { setcookie("language", 'eng', time()+31536000, "/", ".yoursite.com", 0); } header(Location: "http://www.yourwebsite.com/main.php"); main.php: PHP: if(!$_COOKIE['language']) { header (Location: "http://www.yoursite.com/index.php"); } include '/path/to/templates/index.'.$_COOKIE['language'].'.php'; Something like that anyway - there are many ways to do this. Code is completely untried and untested, it's also nearly 2AM, i'm tired and expecting someone to pick holes in my method
Yeah, if you and your users are alright using cookies, then just do it like that. As for the actual language text, if you want them in a file rather than DB-d, just define them as constants. lang_en.php: define('TEXT_GOOD_MORNING', 'Good morning'); lang_wa.php: define('TEXT_GOOD_MORNING', 'Bore da');* include whichever lang you want as per RTTs (probably broken () code) and then wherever you display the text, just do echo "<div style=\"width: 100px\">".TEXT_GOOD_MORNING."</div>"; etc etc. (Don't know if you knew all this already, but if you did, it might help someone else). *I have no idea if this is correct; blame Signor Google
Just to annoy all those people and spam here ... the .NET technology is amazingly simple for this kind of stuff but then again its expensive (i.e. not free!) I have to admit I hate cookies but saving a user's preference is probably one of the few cases its acceptable. In light of the fact I know nothing much about PHP I think Hwulex has come up with the best suggestion. Its quite extensible and incredibly similar to something I was gonig to suggest. Only one real point to make is that sometimes dual language sites can really be a pain to get working as some translations don't overlay the same as another. Thus if your pages have static information only, I would consider making them static HTML. This has the advantage that you cut the code out quicker and will be delivered to the browser faster too, but you'll also have the maintenance nightmare of duplicated pages (deliver the site then have an upgarde path to render the site as per Hwulex suggestion). Its all swings and roundabouts. Sorry pretty spammy but its early at work and I'm having to use the internal internet cafe as there is no-one able to unlock my Win2K account. So I'm struggling with the Americano from our starbucks! Stu
