Hi guys,
There are so many different ways to add multi-language functionality to a CI installation. I went ahead and put together something that looks like it will work and I would like some feedback.
Background:
My website purpose is to sell online English lessons to people in Europe. It is crucial that my site is multilingual.
Caveat:
I use HMVC modules to organize my site... as a result I am unable to implement /en/ or /fr/ urls.
My website has four user areas:
Here is what I am doing:
I am storing a users choice in a session variable "language".
The default session language is set to English in the templates __constructor() like this:
So when someone requests my home page I call the templates controller and the frontend method.
So my language translations are of course in the Application->language folder... here is how I have it structured:
![.png]( "PNG Image")
language_file_directory_structure.png (Size: 5.62 KB / Downloads: 8)
Because there is actually quite a bit of language that needs to be translated (e.g. footer, form validation, actual content and paragraphs, menus, blurbs) I was thinking of splitting up the translations to different files such as frontend/footer_lang.php, frontend/header_lang.php etc... and then including them all into a master "frontend_lang.php"... is that a good idea?
As for the actual implementation of the language switcher... I have a dropdown menu with my different language options:
![.png]( "PNG Image")
language_file_directory_structure.png (Size: 5.62 KB / Downloads: 8)
So when a user selects 'french' for example, they get redirected to base_url/language/switch_language/french controller that looks like this:
So basically I am just setting the user language session variable and redirecting to the last url page they were on.
I am interested to hear some feedback on my solution.
Many thanks.
Jethro.
![.png]( "PNG Image")
language_picker.png (Size: 6.89 KB / Downloads: 8)
There are so many different ways to add multi-language functionality to a CI installation. I went ahead and put together something that looks like it will work and I would like some feedback.
Background:
My website purpose is to sell online English lessons to people in Europe. It is crucial that my site is multilingual.
Caveat:
I use HMVC modules to organize my site... as a result I am unable to implement /en/ or /fr/ urls.
My website has four user areas:
- frontend (public access)
- student area (login protected)
- teacher zone (login protected)
- my administration panel
Here is what I am doing:
I am storing a users choice in a session variable "language".
The default session language is set to English in the templates __constructor() like this:
PHP Code:
/**
* handles the default language for the template
*/
public function __construct()
{
parent::__construct();
// set language
if ($this->session->userdata('language') === null) {
$this->session->set_userdata('language', 'english');
}
}
So when someone requests my home page I call the templates controller and the frontend method.
PHP Code:
/**
* the public frontend
* @param array $data
* @return html
*/
public function frontend($data)
{
// get template language
$this->lang->load('frontend/frontend', $this->session->userdata('language'));
// load template
$this->load->model('time/Time_Model');
$this->load->view('frontend_template', $data);
}
So my language translations are of course in the Application->language folder... here is how I have it structured:
language_file_directory_structure.png (Size: 5.62 KB / Downloads: 8)
Because there is actually quite a bit of language that needs to be translated (e.g. footer, form validation, actual content and paragraphs, menus, blurbs) I was thinking of splitting up the translations to different files such as frontend/footer_lang.php, frontend/header_lang.php etc... and then including them all into a master "frontend_lang.php"... is that a good idea?
As for the actual implementation of the language switcher... I have a dropdown menu with my different language options:
language_file_directory_structure.png (Size: 5.62 KB / Downloads: 8)
So when a user selects 'french' for example, they get redirected to base_url/language/switch_language/french controller that looks like this:
PHP Code:
class Language extends MX_Controller
{
public function switch_language($language)
{
$this->session->set_userdata('language', $language);
redirect($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']);
}
}
So basically I am just setting the user language session variable and redirecting to the last url page they were on.
I am interested to hear some feedback on my solution.
Many thanks.
Jethro.
language_picker.png (Size: 6.89 KB / Downloads: 8)