[thelist] Multiple-language sites

[dn at dittodesign.co.uk]

Hi Katie,

I've just completed a very basic five language site.

www.odaban.com

As you can see the design is based around the old
way of displaying Flash movies.

<disclaimer>Not my design. This is completely the
clients design and no persuasion otherwise would sway
him</diclaimer>

> 1) One person on my team suggested reading the language from the
browser --
> does this work often enough? Are there browser incompatibility issues, or
> is it unlikely that users have configured this option?

I stayed clear of scripting to pick up the system language
and display the correct page. The main reason was to keep
it simple and also the system settings are not gauranteed 100%
to match the system users language eg somebody English
speaking in say, France using a net cafe would get the French
version. Unless you also gave them the option to change they'd
be stuck with it. Beyond that there's still a small percentage of
net users out there with Javascripting turned off. A small
percentage of the millions online adds up to a fair old number.
Course you can always check wether scripting is disabled and
redirect to switch on instructions.

> 2) Should I make separate physical pages for each language (and have the
> nightmare of maintaining the links between all the languages)

Not such a big problem. If you build the whole of one language section
first. It's very easy to cut and paste each additional language section one
at a
time. Changing links and page saves as you go to, say from English info.htm
to info-F.htm for French etc giving all the French the additional -F
German -G
and so on. Very easy to remember what points were.

or find a way
> to have each page know all 10 languages and just display the one that the
> user wants at a time (would this take too long to load or be difficult to
> maintain?).
>

Sounds like a database, probably the best option if you have the skill set
and the hosting. Unfortunately my client didn't give me that option. Plus
to be fair I have'nt been working with databases online that long so I
didn't push him =8-) If your not to hot with this yourself I picked up
Ultradev a few weeks ago, it was a bit fiddly to get up and running
and the code output is a bit chunky but very usable once you get your
head round the basics. Maintaining the database would be simplicity
itself.

> 3) Any tips for how/where to put a language selector into the interface?
> Drop-down menu, little flags for countries, and a million other things
have
> been suggested. (I'm sort of throwing out the flag idea -- too many
> countries share a language, and I'm sure the brits would be annoyed to
have
> to choose an american flag, or the canadians would be annoyed at clicking
> on france, and justly so.)

We had the option for languages available on the main index page with a
link back from everypage on the site. This was mainly because of the
limited space available due to the clients design *sigh*.
You definately need the option to swap languages from any page and
I would suggest putting it in a pretty prominent postion. Don't dismiss
the flag idea completely after all a colourful graphic is more likely to
catch the eye and so inform the visitor that a language option is
available. As for Brits (Im from Manchester UK) being offended at having
to click on an American flag, Damn right, after all there's no such
language
as American =8-) same goes in reverse for Canadians no such language.
As far as I know they're pretty proud of they're French heritage anyway.

> If anyone has experience with massively multi language sites, please
offer
> up any tips you might have. It has to be a relatively simple site, since
> this is just a fraction of my duties and I don't have time to code up
> anything extravagant (and I don't have any control over the server --
just
> the ability to upload HTML pages. I'm not even sure if I can upload more
> than that.)

My biggest problem was the limited space available due to the clients silly
design. I found that on translation many languages grew the length of the
text, especially the French. Due to Netscapes lack of full support for CSS
which I was using to alter the text size to fit, I had to build a whole new
version of the French site for Netscape. Be aware that you will need to
allow for this expansion and contraction within your design.

Ok think thats it. Oh yeah remember when it comes to search engine
submissions you can submit to different language versions of the
major engines. Also www.systransoft.com is useful for translating
a few words for the Alt tags. Any more than that and it comes out
all mixed up. Basically you will need to get professional translations
done.

HTH

Wow just looked back at the length of this reply.
Im going for a lie down. =8-)

Darren Yates
dn at dittodesign.co.uk
http://dittodesign.co.uk


----- Original Message -----
From: "Katie Kearns" <katie at vquill.com>
To: "Thelist" <thelist at lists.evolt.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 02, 2002 2:44 AM
Subject: [thelist] Multiple-language sites


>
> I'm just beginning to plan a multiple-language site, which I have no
> experience with so far. ;)  I was wondering if I could get some ideas
about
> ways to handle displaying text in about 10 different languages, and how
to
> determine what language I should serve to a particular user.
>
> 1) One person on my team suggested reading the language from the
browser --
> does this work often enough? Are there browser incompatibility issues, or
> is it unlikely that users have configured this option?
>
> 2) Should I make separate physical pages for each language (and have the
> nightmare of maintaining the links between all the languages) or find a
way
> to have each page know all 10 languages and just display the one that the
> user wants at a time (would this take too long to load or be difficult to
> maintain?).
>
> 3) Any tips for how/where to put a language selector into the interface?
> Drop-down menu, little flags for countries, and a million other things
have
> been suggested. (I'm sort of throwing out the flag idea -- too many
> countries share a language, and I'm sure the brits would be annoyed to
have
> to choose an american flag, or the canadians would be annoyed at clicking
> on france, and justly so.)
>
> If anyone has experience with massively multi language sites, please
offer
> up any tips you might have. It has to be a relatively simple site, since
> this is just a fraction of my duties and I don't have time to code up
> anything extravagant (and I don't have any control over the server --
just
> the ability to upload HTML pages. I'm not even sure if I can upload more
> than that.)
>
> -Katie
>
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