We need to implement a multi-language content MMBase site. As the MultiLanguage
project has been frozen, I contacted Nico at Finalist, who provided me with
some alternatives. He suggested to either
1. Add an i18n-table to the database - this would require a core change (Nico
told me about a quickfix that queries the database directly, but I'm not in
favor of that)
2. Add extra fields to the builder (e.g. en_title, nl_title, fr_title instead
of title) - requires quiate elaborate configuration for each website deployed.
3. Use XML instead of plain text as field content
Since we do not want to interfere with core development and would like to be
able to support i18n as an add-on instead of a key feature, the XML-option
seems to us to be the most viable one. Our suggested approach is as follows:
1. Add defaultLocale and supportedLocales to web.xml (or, if preferred by the
community, to a properties file within the jar containing the i18n add-on code)
2. Adjust an editor to display all fields of a node locale-relative (e.g. use a
Tab-like presentation for each supported locale)
3. Have the editor POST to a servlet that transforms the multi-value inputs to
xml-snippets like this:
<i18n>
<content language="nl">Dit is nieuws</content>
<content language="en">This is news</content>
<content language="fr">Je ne sais quoi</content>
</i18n>
and sets these snippets as the field content of the node. Core functionality
will be used to store and/or retrieve the node.
4. Write some extra tags in order to provide front-end localization. These
would preferably be the same as the standard tags, with an extra parameter
'locale'. The locale param will be used to correctly transform the xml snippet
to a localized string.
5. Precompile the editor jsp files and the servlet and helper files.
6. Deliver an i18n.jar and a web.xml.snippet file - by putting the jar into
WEB-INF and copying the servlet defenitions and mappings from web.xml.snippet
into web.xml, content localization will be available without any interference
with core functionality.
We think this can be realised without investing too much time, as it only
requires some editor and tag tweaks. We could start a Proof of Concept this
week, so your suggestions/remarks are more than welcome.
Regards,
Wouter
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