I have an ASP.NET MVC app. This app allows the user to set the culture to view the contents of the app in. To do this, the user visits ~/user/language. They choose the language and click a "Save" button. In my controller, I have the following:
CultureInfo ci = new CultureInfo(model.Culture);
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = ci;
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = ci;
return View(model);
When the view is re-loaded, the strings have been translated like I would expect. However, if I visit another page in the app, the strings are NOT translated like I would expect. It's like the culture information isn't being preserved or the thread is being killed.
What am I doing wrong?
#heymega is correct. The current culture is non-persistent. You have to load at the beginning of each request. You need to set the culture to a persistent location (such as a cookie) and then set the culture to the thread in the Application_BeginRequest event.
A better way than using a cookie is to build the culture into the URL.
http://www.somesite.com/es-MX/somewhere
http://www.somesite.com/en-US/somewhere
This is what search engines expect, it means the user can switch culture easily by switching URLs, and you don't have to keep track of culture on a per user basis. However, you do still need to set the culture at the beginning of each request based on the URL.
Related
I'm working on a system that needs to know a user's choice before they enter a site. Up till now the choice has been stored in a cookie and checked by JavaScript on the page load - if the cookie doesn't exist then a dialog is shown and the user makes the choice.
Although we'd normally expect the user to arrive at the homepage of the application, they can legally follow a URL to any page within the application, so the JavaScript to check the choice exists on every page.
This has caused problems (almost always fixed by clearing cookies) so we're switching to store the choice in the database. What we need is a neat way of making sure that all pages (MVC and Web Forms) check that the choice has been made and, if it hasn't, either display a dialog or redirect to a page where the choice can be made.
The main thing bothering me is that to cause a redirect using MVC, I need to return a RedirectResult, and this can only be done from an Action. I don't want every action to have code regarding this check - it seems like the kind of thing that should be possible from a base controller (in the same way a base page could cause a Response.Redirect.
Can anyone suggest a good way for all pages to perform a check on the database and then either cause a redirect or show a dialog?
The main thing bothering me is that to cause a redirect using MVC, I
need to return a RedirectResult, and this can only be done from an
Action.
Oh not at all. You could also redirect from a custom action filters.
For example you could write a custom IAuthorizationFilter that will check whether the user made the necessary choice and if not redirect to some given page. The check could be done against a cookie, database or wherever you decide to persist this information:
public class EnsureChoiceHasBeenMadeAttribute : FilterAttribute, IAuthorizationFilter
{
public void OnAuthorization(AuthorizationContext filterContext)
{
// get the current user
var user = filterContext.HttpContext.User;
if (user.Identity.IsAuthenticated && !UserMadeAChoice(user.Identity.Name))
{
// if the current user is authenticated and he didn't made a choice
// redirect him to some page without even attempting to execute
// the controller action that he requested
var values = new RouteValueDictionary(new
{
controller = "home",
action = "index"
});
filterContext.Result = new RedirectToRouteResult(values);
}
}
private bool UserMadeAChoice(string username)
{
throw new NotImplementedException();
}
}
Now you have different possibilities:
You decorate the controllers/actions that you want to perform this check with the [EnsureChoiceHasBeenMade] attribute
You register the action filter as a global action filter so that it applies to absolutely all actions
You write a custom filter provider in order to dynamically apply the action filter to some actions based on some dynamic values (you have access to the HttpContext).
I am trying to develop a MVC3 (razor) application with Select language functionality.
Using the following view as a Partial view on _Layout.cshtml
_SelectCulture
<text>
#Html.ActionLink("English", "SetCulture", new { controller = "Culture", culture = "en-GB" })
|
#Html.ActionLink("Welsh", "SetCulture", new { controller = "Culture", culture = "cy-GB" })
</text>
<div>
#System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture.ToString()
</div>
CultureController
public ActionResult SetCulture(string culture)
{
System.Globalization.CultureInfo ci = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo(culture);
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = ci;
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = ci;
return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home");
}
But its Still not changing the Language.
Any help please.
Thanks
Well, you are changing the language of the current thread. The current thread ends with the current request which is a little bit later after your controller action executes. Then you are redirecting to some other controller action. Then ASP.NET spawns a new thread to serve this request which obviously doesn't have the culture set.
So you will have to persist this change somewhere. Basically there are 3 different approaches:
route variable
cookies
session
I am putting them in the order of preference. The first approach consists into integrating a {culture} token in all your routes. IMHO this is the best approach in terms of SEO as well. So you will redirect for example to /fr/home/index if you want to get your site in French. You could then use a custom action filter attribute which will run before each action, inspect the culture route parameter and set the current thread culture (this time for the current action).
Cookies and sessions also involve persisting the current language between the requests. In the first example this is done on the client whereas in the second it is done in the server. Once again a custom action filter could be used to read the value of the language before each action and reflect the current thread culture.
You may take a look at the following guide which uses Session to persist the current language.
I have an asp.net mvc application where i want the user to be able to change language. I have provided a series of links with small flags on to let the user choose language. The target of all these links is my "dashboard" page, in which controller i have this code:
[HttpGet]
[Authorize]
public ViewResult Dashboard(string id)
{
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(id))
{
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo(id);
}
}
The "Dashboard" page is displayed in the chosen language, as it should be. But when i navigate on through my website, the culture is changed back to english (default)... am i missing something? Shouldnt changing the CurrentUICulture change the entire application to the other language?
In System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture, in this way the culture is set for only current request of the user, and it will be reset to default language for subsequent user requests.
You need to set the ui culture on each view where you want to show language based data (Localized data).
Tip: save the user's selected culture id in session and use it on each view to specify the uiculture
like this,
// save users selected culture id in session
Session["SelectedCultureId"] = id;
on each view set current thread ui culture id
if (Session["SelectedCultureId"] != null)
{
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo(Session["SelectedCultureId"]);
}
There were questions about multilingual apps in MVC here on SO but they were mostly answered by giving details about implementing Resource files and then referencing those Resource strings in Views or Controller. This works fine for me in conjunction with the detection of user's locale.
What I want to do now is support localized routes. For instance, we have some core pages for each website like the Contact Us page.
What I want to achieve is this:
1) routes like this
/en/Contact-us (English route)
/sl/Kontakt (Slovenian route)
2) these two routes both have to go to the same controller and action and these will not be localized (they will be in English because they are hidden away from the user since they are part of the site's core implementation):
My thought is to make the Controller "Feedback" and Action "FeedbackForm"
3) FeedbackForm would be a View or View User control (and it would use references to strings in RESX files, as I said before, I already have set this up and it works)
4) I have a SetCulture attribute attached to BaseController which is the parent of all of my controllers and this attribute actually inherits FilterAttribute and implements IActionFilter - but what does it do? Well, it detects browser culture and sets that culture in a Session and in a cookie (forever) - this functionality is working fine too. It already effects the Views and View User Controls but at this time it does not effect routes.
5) at the top of the page I will give the user a chance to choose his language (sl|en). This decision must override 4). If a user arrives at our website and is detected as Slovenian and they decide to switch to English, this decision must become permanent. From this time on SetCulture attribute must somehow loose its effect.
6) After the switch, routes should immediately update - if the user was located at /sl/Kontakt
he should immediately be redirected to /en/Contact-us.
These are the constraints of the design I would like. Simply put, I do not want English routes while displaying localized content or vice-versa.
Suggestions are welcome.
EDIT:
There's some information and guidance here - Multi-lingual websites with ASP.NET MVC, but I would still like to hear more thoughts or practices on this problem.
Translating routes (ASP.NET MVC and Webforms)
How about this?
Create custom translate route class.
Localization with ASP.NET MVC using Routing
Preview:
For my site the URL schema should look
like this in general:
/{culture}/{site}
Imagine there is a page called FAQ,
which is available in different
languages. Here are some sample URLs
for these pages:
/en-US/FAQ /de-DE/FAQ /de-CH/FAQ
Why not create the action names desired and simply RedirectToAction for the single, real implementation?
public ActionResult Kontakt() {
return RedirectToAction("Contact");
}
public ActionResult Contact() {
return View();
}
I just used a simple solution with "Globalization Resources", like this:
routes.MapRoute(
"nameroute", // Route name
App_GlobalResources.Geral.Route_nameroute+"/{Obj}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Index", action = "Details", Obj = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
);
But, you could customize as needed.
I am just beginning to localize an ASP.NET MVC application. Most of the strings will be defined in resource files and retrieved via Matt's Localization Helpers. Other strings must be stored in a database.
My Question:
Should I set CurrentUICulture early in the request pipeline and use that throughout the application, or directly use Request.UserLanguages[0] whenever needed?
Right now I'm thinking that I should set CurrentUICulture in Application_BeginRequest. The implementation would look something like this:
protected void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
var cultureName = HttpContext.Current.Request.UserLanguages[0];
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo(cultureName);
}
Is this the best place to set CurrentUICulture and is Request.UserLanguages[0] the best place to get that info?
Update:
Ariel's post shows this can be defined without code, using web.config
<system.web>
<!--If enableClientBasedCulture is true, ASP.NET can set the UI culture and culture for a Web page automatically, based on the values that are sent by a browser.-->
<globalization enableClientBasedCulture="true" culture="auto:en-US" uiCulture="auto:en"/>
Here is a sample using an HttpModule:
http://weblogs.manas.com.ar/smedina/2008/12/17/internationalization-in-aspnet-mvc/
Other options, create a base Controller class and implement the localization logic there.
Or use an action filter attribute, but you'll have to remember to add it on every controller or combine this approach with the base Controller class.
Request.UserLanguages[0] can only be a hint what language the users wishes to see. Most users dont know where to change the browser language.
Another point: Dont be sure that Request.UserLanguages[0] is a valid language. It can even be null. (Not sure what bots have there)
You usually have a Language chooser on the page. Once a user has selected a language there, it is stored in a cookie, session or url. I like to use url because I think it looks pretty.
If a user sees your page without having set a language on your page, you should check if Request.UserLanguages[0] is a language you support and set Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture.
I use a filter to set Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture. Thats ok as long as no other filter is using Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture. Otherwise you would need to set the right execution order for filters.
I also use Matts helper and it worked very well so far.