On Nov 27, 2007, at 8:37 AM, Jeff Benetti wrote:
I'm a noob so keep the comments to a noob's level please.
I am doing a website and my client wants the bulk of the text to be
bilingual (French and English). The last site I did used php and
mysql so I
am getting comfortable with that technology. Typically I am using a
single
php file and my menu constantly points to the same file with
different id
options example "index.php?id=30" and I want to use the same idea to
choose
a language example "index.php?lang=fr&id=30". Pretty straight
forward for
many of you folks but before I start reinventing the wheel I
wondered if
anyone could offer any suggestions. I have a couple of approaches
in mind.
I'm actually in the process of planning this as well... English and
Spanish...
1: Session vars, I have never used this but it seems straight forward.
Drawbacks?
Sessions are easy enough to use, just make sure that you are setting
the variable in the right place... On a site I did the stored variable
was always 1 behind what I wanted it to be... I moved the setting of
the variable, and it worked :)
2: Cookies again not too big a deal, never used cookies either but it
doesn't seem to be mystifying however the fact that the user can turn
cookies off makes me not want to go this route.
3: Use the mysql database and log each ip address and record the
preference
and maybe the last time on the site. I am leaning in this direction
because
I think it is the most robust but will it be slow? First I have to
get the
ip then I have to check to see if it is in my data base and then get
the
language preference. It would be great to have a standardized
function that
I could use on all of my sites. I live in a bilingual country
(Canada) so
this could be a real selling point for my services.
I don't know much about using mysql for storing IP's in canada... But
in the US, all IP's except for businesses are dynamic, they could
change every time a user would go to a site.. I could see that causing
issues...
Any any and all comments are welcome, it will be a learning curve no
matter
which route I take so a little advice on the best direction pros
cons would
be great.
And of course knowing that I will have many many thousands of people
on my
site (hee hee) which option will perform best once I start
accumulating
vistors. That's one problem I see with the mysql solution, I think
it may
start to be slow unless I start purging vistors who have not shown
up in a
while or limit the number of entries.
I'm currently planning to store the text of the pages on my site in a
database, so that I can very easily just change the language
preference, and get the english, or spanish out of the database. I
also think it will help speed up the site for when I have my thousands
of users a second :)
When you start doing it, let me know your experiences... I plan to
actually start coding (If me and the site owner can see eye to eye on
some stuff...) in january.
--
Jason Pruim
Raoset Inc.
Technology Manager
MQC Specialist
3251 132nd ave
Holland, MI, 49424
www.raoset.com
japruim@xxxxxxxxxx
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