language switcher in 3.10

Tuesday 30 October 2007 6:52:39 pm

I had the following simple code for a language switcher on a 3.9 site that I just upgraded to 3.10:

<div id="language-switcher">
<a href="{concat('http://www.example.org/', $DesignKeys:used.url_alias)}">English</a> | 
<a href="{concat('http://es.example.org/', $DesignKeys:used.url_alias)}">Espa&ntilde;ol</a> | 
<a href="{concat('http://fr.example.org/', $DesignKeys:used.url_alias)}">Fran&ccedil;ais</a>
</div>

Which used to produce, e.g.:

<div id="language-switcher">
<a href="{concat('http://www.example.org/contact">English</a> | 
<a href="{concat('http://es.example.org/contact">Espa&ntilde;ol</a> | 
<a href="{concat('http://fr.example.org/contact">Fran&ccedil;ais</a>
</div>

This now produces (on the English site):

<div id="language-switcher">
<a href="{concat('http://www.example.org/Contact">English</a> | 
<a href="{concat('http://es.example.org/Contact">Espa&ntilde;ol</a> | 
<a href="{concat('http://fr.example.org/Contact">Fran&ccedil;ais</a>
</div>

Which of course does not work, because the url_alias on the English site is different to the aliases for the other language sites. What it needs to produce is this:

<div id="language-switcher">
<a href="{concat('http://www.example.org/Contact">English</a> | 
<a href="{concat('http://es.example.org/Contactarnos">Espa&ntilde;ol</a> | 
<a href="{concat('http://fr.example.org/Contactez_Nous">Fran&ccedil;ais</a>
</div>

However, I can't work out any way to extract the other languages' url_alias from Exponential.

I've done this as a temporary fix, but it's not ideal:

<div id="language-switcher">
<a href="{concat('http://www.example.org/', $uri_string)}">English</a> | 
<a href="{concat('http://es.example.org/', $uri_string)}">Espa&ntilde;ol</a> | 
<a href="{concat('http://fr.example.org/', $uri_string)}">Fran&ccedil;ais</a>
</div>

From looking at the 3.9 webin extension it seems to me this problem would affect the language switcher there too. I can't seem to find a 3.10 webin though to compare.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Matthew

http://carroll.org.uk

Saturday 17 November 2007 1:41:12 am

Hi Xavier

I think putting a shorten on the url aliases is possible by creating a custom transformation command. See http://ez.no/doc/ez_publish/technical_manual/3_10/features/multi_language_support_for_url_aliases/custom_transformation_commands for more information. By the way, there will follow more docs about the transformation system.

independent eZ Publish developer and service provider | http://blog.coomanskristof.be | http://ezpedia.org

Monday 19 November 2007 1:45:12 am

Hi,

I'm having also problems making a language switcher. I found it is done in the admin, in the template design/admin/templates/content/urlalias.tpl. That template uses a variable wich has all the alias in all the languages for a given node. It's $elements, on line 206, an array.

I cannot find in what template that array is created but i'm prety sure there is the answer to the multilingual url alias.

If you wanna see how it works in the admin it's in the left menu, click on any icon --> Advanced --> Manage url alias ( my admin is in spanish so maybe not exactly that ).

There you can see how the admin is fetching from somewhere the alias for every language of that node.

Any one can find how to replicate this in our templates??

Thanks,

Luis Muñoz

Monday 26 November 2007 9:18:08 am

Additionally, here's the relevant part of the navigation. It will default to the parent node, if the current node is not translated into the target language. Same goes for the parent node and so on.

lang_navi.html

{* list with node-id's on the way to the main node *}
{def $node_path=array()}

{* unavailable locales on each level *}
{def $na_locales=array()}

{* path not necessary if we're already at the main page *}
{if $node.node_id|ne(2)}

	{* start with current node *}
	{def $curr_node=$node}
	
	{* traverse the path to the top *}
	{for $pagedepth to 2 as $i}
	
		{* remember all node-ids on the way *}
		{set $node_path=$node_path|append($curr_node.node_id)}
		
		{* fetch unavailable translations *}
		{def $node_na_locales=fetch('content', 'non_translation_list',
										hash('object_id', $curr_node.contentobject_id,
											 'version', $curr_node.contentobject_version) )}
		
		{* pack unavailable locale codes into an array *}
		{def $node_na_lcodes=array()}
		{foreach $node_na_locales as $node_na_locale}
			{set $node_na_lcodes=$node_na_lcodes|append($node_na_locale.locale_code)}
		{/foreach}
		
		{* save the unavailable locale code-array to the parent array *}
		{set $na_locales=$na_locales|append($node_na_lcodes)}
		{undef $node_na_lcodes}
		{undef $node_na_locales}
		
		{* continue with the parent node *}
		{set $curr_node=fetch('content', 'node', hash('node_id', $curr_node.parent_node_id))}
	{/for}
{/if}

The functionality for choosing the right node and generating a localized link is in an external template that get's called like this:

    <div id="language_chooser">
[...]
      {include uri='design:menu/lang_item.tpl' node_path=$node_path na_locales=$na_locales
      											domain='www.foo.de' locale_code='ger-DE' locale_desc='Deutsch'}
      {include uri='design:menu/lang_item.tpl' node_path=$node_path na_locales=$na_locales
      											domain='www.foo.com' locale_code='eng-US' locale_desc='English'}
[...]
    </div>

And here follows the final link logic in lang_item.tpl:

{* traverse through all nodes and check, if they're available in the desired language *}
{foreach $node_path as $index => $node_id}
	{if not($na_locales[$index]|contains($locale_code))}
		{def $final_node=$node_id}
		{break}
	{/if}
{/foreach}

{* If no translated node has been found, point to the index page *}
{if not(is_set($final_node))}
	{def $url_alias=concat('/')|ezurl('no')}
{else}
	{def $alias_path=fetch_url_alias($final_node, $locale_code)}
	{def $url_alias=concat('/', $alias_path)|ezurl('no')}
{/if}

<div class="lang_item">
	<a href="http://{$domain}{$url_alias}">
		<img alt="{$locale_desc|wash()}" src={concat("menu/", $locale_code , "/flag.gif")|ezimage('double')}/>
		&nbsp;{$locale_desc|wash()}
	</a>
</div>

{undef $final_node}

Hope it helps anyone ;-)

Wednesday 28 November 2007 4:03:37 am

Here you are:
http://ez.no/developer/contribs/hacks/fetch_multilingual_url_alias_by_locale

Have fun :-)

Edit: I just realized, you might have meant the language switcher... I'll see what I can do, as it needs some testing first and I have a stack of work in front of me. Just track the changes of this thread, I'll reply here, when it's done.

Thursday 29 November 2007 1:20:10 am

No, I just need to reorganize it, as we have hardcoded our domain names and locales in the switcher (because of host matching). I think I'll put that part into an ini-file.