Anthony Crawford wrote: > Hi all, I have been asked to do redesign a website, in both English > and French. This is the first time I have had to deal with a > multi-language support. I do not want to duplicate a static site with > French translated files. My question is what is the best approach in > doing this? Should I use a CMS? What I would like to do is move them
some of this stuff was mentioned before but basically you would want to make the app as locale generic as possible (you do not want to rewrite the s/w every time a locale is added). so internationalize first, then localize. and simply substituting french translations for english isn't the end of this process. you'll need to scan thru your existing code & find all obstacles to making the app i18n, these can include: - date/numeric/currency formats (i strongly urge you to just use the 4 java standard date formats, parsing custom localized date strings is very often impossible--what comes out has to go back in) - measurement units (might be a big deal depending on the type of site) - non-unicode capable databases, data schema, etc. if your db isn't unicode capable, ditch it, it's some kind of dinosaur anyway. - address formats, postal codes, administrative units, etc. - collation (depend on the db for this but does cf's unicode codepoint sort work good enough for the locales you need to support? it often isn't) - lack of timezones (tz) consideration (use GMT in the db & cast to user's tz as needed, do not assume every user is in the same tz) - calendars (don't fixate on the gregorian calendar, make the app generic enough to swap in others as needed) - HTML layout that ignores writing system directionality (this applies to graphics as well) as well as language/encoding hints - application text (buttons, labels, etc.) needs to be swapped out to some kind of dynamic variable. i'd suggest java-style resource bundles for this. the biggest deal in these kinds of projects is managing your translations (another hint is NOT to use developers to translate anything unless the app is some kind of geeky portal). there are several applications out there that can help with this, decide on one & use it. you'll also have to decide on what type of site architecture you want to use, monolingual (distinct url for each language) or multilingual (one url for all languages). the rest of the app's design/code will flow from this. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Logware (www.logware.us): a new and convenient web-based time tracking application. Start tracking and documenting hours spent on a project or with a client with Logware today. Try it for free with a 15 day trial account. http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=67 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:211119 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
