Language Selector

As translation of a website is nearing completion, it is usually necessary to prepare a language selector to make the various languages more accessible. There are two options:

1. develop a custom selector in-house
2. use one of the proxy default selectors.

In all cases, the addition of a language selector will need to be done on the original server and then propagated to the translated domains through the proxy.

Proxy Solutions

To spare you the expense and time of developing a custom language selector, we have prepared two default solutions you can use. Each of these require the minimum possible intervention on the original site for deployment. Note, however, that seamless visual integration of the selector requires some fiddling with the CSS rules. The following two types of language selectors are available:

RYO or Existing Selector

It is possible that site undergoing translation is also running (or was previously running) a different localization solution, in which case a language selector is usually already present. It is relatively straightforward to extend an existing language selector with the proxy-published target languages.

Since that language selector is also proxied, it is important to protect the link pointing to the original language site from being remapped in the process.

In order to do this, the __ptNoRemap special class can be used to indicate to the proxy that it should not change any links in the given tag.

A brief example of how the original site link can be protected from remapping with __ptNoRemap:

<div class="selector-container">
    <ul id="selector">
        <!-- PREVENT REMAPPING OF ORIGINAL LINK - this requires a full domain-->
        <li id="en-US" class="language selected"><a href="//www.example.com" class="__ptNoRemap">English</a></li>
        <ul class="dropdown">
            <li id="de-DE" class="language"><a href="//de.example.com">Deutsch</a></li>
            <li id="fr-FR" class="language"><a href="//fr.example.com">Francais</a></li>
        </ul>
    </ul>
</div>

You may also wish to use the translate=”no” attribute in places where you want the proxy to ignore the textual content of the HTML element.

Example

Depending on how involved it is, a language selector may have to react to user input/animate dropdowns/start XHR requests, etc. Its appearance and behavior depend on the number of languages, publishing method, site layout & design etc, which is beyond the scope of this manual. But to get you started with a suggestion, a commented minimal example in vanilla JS/CSS follows below, which is also available in a slightly modified form as a JSFiddle here.

(function () {
    "use strict";
    /* The target locale code, a two-letter language code plus a two
       letter country code, separated by a dash, is added
       automatically over the proxy. Either this value or the HTML
       markup might have to be adjusted to be applicable on the
       original site */
    var lang = document.querySelector("html").getAttribute("lang") || "en-US";
    /* The usual "readystatechange" event listener works if
       you need to wait

       document.addEventListener("readystatechange", function () {
            if (document.readyState === "complete") init();
       }))
    */

    init();

    function init () {
        selectDefault();
        setEventHandlers();
    }

    function setEventHandlers () {
        var items = document.querySelectorAll("div.selector-container li.language a");
        for (var i = 0; i < items.length; i++) {
            items[i].addEventListener("click", function (e) {
                selectLanguage(e.target.parentNode);
            })
        }
    }

    function selectDefault () {
        /* See if we can select anything in the language selector
           based on our locale code. */
        var base = document.querySelector("div.selector-container li#" + lang);
        /* ...and try to default to anything we've found */
        if (base !== "undefined") selectLanguage(base);
    }

    function selectLanguage (target) {
        /* 'click' event was triggered on any of the language selector
           entries. */
        var selected = document.querySelector("li.selected");
        var dropdown = document.querySelector(".dropdown");

        /* don't do anything if we would be switching to the same
           language */
        if (target === selected) return;

        /* SWITCH LANGUAGE.

           ...but we are only "swapping elements" in the menu (the
           code doesn't navigate in actuality). A target language
           domain or a CST query parameter could result in a page
           load.

           The "dropdown" approach showcased here is also an
           illustration of a frequent issue: when selectLanguage() is
           called, the selected target language is replacing the
           current one in the dropdown list. So, if you are particular
           about the target languages being listed in a set order, a
           hide/show approach might work better than DOM element
           swapping. */
        target.setAttribute("class", "language selected");
        selected.setAttribute("class", "language");

        selected.parentNode.replaceChild(target, selected);
        dropdown.insertBefore(selected, dropdown.firstChild);
    }
})()

Below are the associated CSS rules.

div.selector-container ul {
  box-shadow: 2px 2px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5) !important;
  list-style: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
}

ul#selector {
  list-style-type: none;
  text-align: center;
  background-color: #f5f5f5;
  max-width: 100px;
}

ul#selector li {
  list-style-type: none;
  list-style: none;
  padding-top: 10px;
  padding-bottom: 10px;
}

ul#selector a {
  color: black;
  text-decoration: none;
}

ul#selector li.selected:hover a {
  color: grey;
}

ul#selector li.selected:hover + ul.dropdown {
  display: block;
}

ul#selector ul.dropdown:hover {
  display: block;
}

ul.dropdown {
  display: none;
}

ul.dropdown li.language {
  padding-top: 10px;
  padding-bottom: 10px;
}

ul.dropdown li.language:hover {
  background-color: chartreuse;
}

RYO selector + Client-Side Translation

If a project is published using Client-side translation, either an existing language selector needs to be used, or a new one developed to trigger translations after selection.

CST translation is activated when the target locale code is stored in the browser with the help of the __ptLanguage query parameter.

In order to trigger language selection/translation in-browser, add this query parameter with the appropriate published locale codes as values. Note that in order for the method to work, URL navigation has to happen once, which means a full reload is required in order to change languages.

Let’s modify the exampe above to suit the needs of CST:

<ul id="languageSelector">
    <li class="language selected">English</li>
    <ul>
        <li><a href="/?__ptLanguage=en-GB">English</a></li>
        <li><a href="/?__ptLanguage=de-DE">Deutsch</a></li>
        <li><a href="/?__ptLanguage=fr-FR">Francais</a></li>
    </ul>
</ul>

The value of __ptLanguage will persist across sessions, the JS file will rely on it until the user changes their mind about their preferred language.

Visiting www.example.com/?__ptLanguage=ja-JP will change target languages into Japanese and store the setting. Visiting www.example.com the next time around will result in the site being translated into Japanese automatically.

The default browser locale can be detected successfully to be a published target language, CST will attempt a locale-specific translation without having had a query parameter provided to it.

Although that is about it, it is useful to keep in mind a few things when setting up a language selector to work with CST.

Somewhat different from the proxy method, CST requires that we provide all locale codes explicitly, especially the original language. Since CST stores the user’s selection in the browser’s local storage, the query parameter is necessary in order to allow the user return to the original language version.

CST publishing does not require any proxy traffic, but the Workbench In-Context editing screen remains available. This can sometimes result in the Client-Side Translation getting mixed up with the proxy-based translations, so if you are using the proxy modes for your translation work while publishing with Client-Side translation, it is generally a good idea to ignore the language selector in Preview.