Set Culture in an ASP.Net MVC app

Question

What is the best place to set the Culture/UI Culture in an ASP.net MVC app

Currently I have a CultureController class which looks like this:

public class CultureController : Controller
    {
        public ActionResult SetSpanishCulture()
        {
            HttpContext.Session["culture"] = "es-ES";
            return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home");
        }

        public ActionResult SetFrenchCulture()
        {
            HttpContext.Session["culture"] = "fr-FR";
            return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home");
        }
    }

and a hyperlink for each language on the homepage with a link such as this

<li><%= Html.ActionLink("French", "SetFrenchCulture", "Culture")%></li>
<li><%= Html.ActionLink("Spanish", "SetSpanishCulture", "Culture")%></li>

Which works fine but I am thinking there is a more appropriate way to do this

I am reading the Culture using the following ActionFilter http://www.iansuttle.com/blog/post/ASPNET-MVC-Action-Filter-for-Localized-Sites.aspx

I am a bit of an MVC noob so am not co0nfident I am setting this in the correct place

I dont want to do it at the web.config level, it has to be based on a users choice.

I also dont want to check their http-headers to get the culture from their browser settings

Edit:

Just to be clear - I am not trying to deciede whether to use session or not. I am happy with that bit.

What I am trying to work out is if it is best to do this in a Culture controller that has an action method for each Culture to be set.

Or is there is a better place in the MVC pipeline to do this

anyone any ideas?

Answer 1

Being as it is a setting that is stored per-user, the session is an appropriate place to store the informtion.

I would change your controller to take the culture string as a parameter, rather than having a different action method for each potential culture. Adding a link to the page is easy, and you shouldn't need to write the same code repeatedly any time a new culture is required.

public class CultureController : Controller    
{
        public ActionResult SetCulture(string culture)
        {
            HttpContext.Session["culture"] = culture
            return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home");
        }        
}

<li><%= Html.ActionLink("French", "SetCulture", new {controller = "Culture", culture = "fr-FR"})%></li>
<li><%= Html.ActionLink("Spanish", "SetCulture", new {controller = "Culture", culture = "es-ES"})%></li>

Answer 2

I would do it in the Initialize event of the controller like this...

    protected override void Initialize(System.Web.Routing.RequestContext requestContext)
    {
        base.Initialize(requestContext);

        const string culture = "en-US";
        CultureInfo ci = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(culture);

        Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = ci;
        Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = ci;
    }

Answer 3

I'm using this localization method and added a route parameter that sets the culture and language whenever a user visits mysite.com/xx-xx/

example:

routes.MapRoute("DefaultLocalized",
            "{language}-{culture}/{controller}.aspx/{action}/{id}",
            new
            {
                controller = "Home",
                action = "Index",
                id = "",
                language = "nl",
                culture = "NL"
            });

I have a filter that does the actual culture/language setting:

public class InternationalizationAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute {


    public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext) {

        string language = (string)filterContext.RouteData.Values["language"] ?? "nl";
        string culture = (string)filterContext.RouteData.Values["culture"] ?? "NL";

        Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(string.Format("{0}-{1}", language, culture));
        Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(string.Format("{0}-{1}", language, culture));

    }
}

Now whenever a visitor goes to http://mysite.com/de-DE/Home/Index the German site is displayed.

I hope this answers points you in the right direction.

Answer 4

Hi!

Sorry for my poor english ... i set these codes on my asp.net mvc project and they "apparently" work, i mean they execute without errors, but there is no changes of culture on my ajax control toolkit calendar, it remains set in english!

Anyone?