Re: Multiple language efforts?
Somers@sisc.ucl.ac.be
Fri, 26 May 1995 05:37:49 +0500
> Gvran Vberg writes:
>> Alan Batie writes:
>>> I'm wondering if anyone has other options for dealing with multiple language
>>> content management. The "obvious", but not very appealing, solutions are to
>>> have separate logical content trees, whether on the same server or not, and
>>> whether in parallel directory trees or in the same directories. A suggestion
>>> was recently made to me that it would be nice if the browsers could select a
>>> "preferred" language, and retrieve that if available, else retrieve the
>>> default. I know that something similar is already possible with respect to
>>> images, but I don't think it's really used --- the server doesn't send back
>>> the embedded images unless the browser asks for them anyhow. Thoughts?
>>
>> I'm pretty sure you can do this with the cern server via
>> content-negotiation and the Accept-Language parameter. I don't have my
>> docs with me right now though, so I can't check. Anyone else have any
>> thoughts?
> I use language encoding of files at www.luth.se in a way that would let a
> language-aware client request a document in a specific language. It is
> done by having suffixes express the content-language. I don't know the
> CERN_httpd source code by heart by I recall it having quite extensive
> routines to really handle content and encoding negotiation.
> Today I use these suffixes primarily as a comfortable way to name different
> versions of a document. The language specification in the HTTP-reply is
> today only a nice side-effect as it seems to be ignored by all common clients.
> I won't go into detail about how it's done unless someone really wants
> me to. I recommend that anyone interested in this reads the documentation:
> <URL:http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/Daemon/User/Config/Suffixes.html>
This is a naming solution, but it don't resolves the mutiple language problem
(perhaps I'am wrong ?)
If you have docA in french and english, docB only in french and
docC in french and english. From docA, you get docB and then docC.
Which is the language of the received docC ?
I have made a little change in the NCSA httpd server to help us.
When you choice a language (with href=URL?language=xx, where xx is
the ISO 639 code of the language), your client is registered on
the server (his IP address) with the choiced language. when you get
a document, the server should give you the document in the right language
(the choice or the default if it doesn't exists).
example:
http://www.ac.ucl.ac.be/LLN/vie.html?language=en
- - you go to UCL (in the bottom) <exists only in french>
- - then go to "La recherche" -> you have the english version !!
The both versions have the same URL !
if the URL is http://myhost/path/file.html
the english file is /htpath/path/file-en.html
the french file is /htpath/path/file-fr.html
You can add a new language version without changing any anchor !!
But the best way in not to register the language of the client on the server ;
The client should be do a GET URL?language=fr,nl,en, and if the server
supports multi-language, it should give the fr version, if not, the nl
version, if not, the en version, if not the default version. But
this needs to change the client side ...
Ir. Francis Somers e-mail: Somers@sisc.ucl.ac.be
University of Louvain tel: +32-10-47.32.06
SC/SISC fax: +32-10.45.21.83
Chemin du cyclotron,2 B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve