Hey, my clients want me to create more language versions of already existing website and I'd like to make it the right way ... all I can think of is to create a folder named 'DE' for example and copy the website in there, but it seems hard to manege, if I had to change something in design and so on. How would you do it?
A:
Exactly. Are we talking about static site or about dynamic content like PHP etc.
For dynamic content: look to externalize strings. seperate them from your source code and place them in localization file. Then include some logic to load the correct localization file according to the language attribute in the request coming from the users browser.
er4z0r
2010-02-03 11:16:09
It's build in php.
Mike
2010-02-03 11:19:10
A:
Creating a multi-language site is generally a hard problem. As a first question, I would ask: Is it really worth creating and managing multiple versions of the same content in different languages?
In most of the cases I have been requested to create a multi-language site, it has been sufficient to create a full site in one language and add short summaries on some other languages. The problem with completely multi-language sites is that somebody also needs to maintain multiple versions of the same content. Without very good tools (like a good CMS), it gets very difficult and worksome.
If you really want to create a multi-language site, I would definitely look for a good CMS.
Of course, if your site is small, some other hacking could work as well.
jsalonen
2010-02-03 11:17:12
A:
The best way to create a website with managable localization can depend on the platform on which your website is being served from. Almost every single server platform has their fair share of tools and methods in implementing 'localization', so the question is what is your server platform?
Of course there are tools like Google's advanced language tools that will allow you to localize your website content using a few well placed links. Example: http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=en&tl=de&u=http://stackoverflow.com/&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhhs-9TKIfMRTZzSTobejHAlRfurVg
drlouie - louierd
2010-02-03 11:19:41
Easy? yes. Best? no. Machine translation sucks, and so does depending on JS (especially if you want your content indexed in other languages by search engines).
David Dorward
2010-02-03 11:29:31