On 11-06-01 04:07 AM, Derek J. Balling wrote: > > On Jun 1, 2011, at 2:59 AM, Dave Close wrote: >> I presume such a >> variable might arrive as an environment variable at the web server, >> similar to the way the user-agent string arrives today. > > This technology already exists today, and absolutely nobody ever uses it, > near as I can tell. If you look at your default apache install, it probably > has about 30 "index.html" files in its default documentation directory, so > that it can give you the language-you-prefer.
Absolutely nobody ever uses it??? On the contrary pretty much all the sites providing content in more than one language do so. Change the language preference of your browser and do a search in google, the results will be in that language, regardless which google you used (google.fr, google.de etc..). > But the fundamental problem with your solution is that it puts a somewhat > large burden on getting to the content. As you said the issue is providing the content, if your target audience only requires one language then don't worry about it, if they require more than one, then absolutely use content content negotiation. It is trivial to set up (actually Apache is setup by default), and it is the optimal solution for your users. I set my browsers to delete cookies etc... when I close them. So sites that relies on you clicking on a button to select your language of choice are a pain, because I have to select that language every single time I reload my browser. > The SERVER must be configured to support this crazy maze of various > language-specific versions of each file. No, you provides languages, or you don't. What you are saying is like saying making a web server able to provide images is crazy, because now you need to hire a graphic artist. > The CLIENT must similarly be configured to know what to ask for. Well, they are. You don't realise it because it works well. Browser language preference is set to your machine language default automatically at install time. > Or, the web site can just have a very simple, mostly-universal pictogram to > help you find your way to where you can change your language on your own. Yes, most sites do that as well. Say you are in Germany and have to quickly use a computer provided by the hotel to do a quick search. That browser will be setup in german, and you'll get most of your content in german. If you're not technical savvy and don't know about browser language preference, then you can click on the link for english for the sites that provide it. I personally even go one step further: -my server will negotiate the language and will provide content in english or french, or, english if you ask for any language -a provide a link on each page for the other version -you can add ".en" or ".fr" to any URI and get the language you want. http://www.SollerS.ca http://www.SollerS.ca/.fr http://www.SollerS.ca/.en How difficult was it to setup? There is no index.html. There is an index.html.en and an index.html.fr, then I have setup apache to tell it the default language is english. I also add a link for directories (ln -s .fr index.html.fr etc...), and also provides images from the same directory for both languages. For nginx you have to add the necessary module, and it is then as simple as apache. > Me? I'll choose the latter, and so have the masses. If the masses wanted the > former, Apache's been capable of doing it since 2.0, and I don't think I've > ever seen anyone actually do so. It was before apache 2. The masses uses it. As a matter of fact, there is a tag in html to tell what language the content of a page is in, and give the uri of the equivalent content in other languages. I believe that is how google translate learns about equivalent in different languages, and that's why it works better than any dictionary based solution. -- Yves. http://www.SollerS.ca/ http://blog.zioup.org/ _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
