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Localizing JavaScript files with JSPsPosted by joconner on August 18, 2008 at 11:42 PM PDT
Last week a friend asked an interesting web-based localization question. He surprised me with it. I wish that I had considered it before, but I had not. In my less than complete analysis of his problem, I found a solution, but I don't know if he'll like it. Hell, I barely like it myself, but it's what I came up with quickly. Here's the question: I want to localize a bit of JavaScript, nothing fancy now, just localized text strings. Once the JavaScript in pulled down into my browser, I don't want to make any more trips to the server to get text. You have any idea how I can get localized strings in my JavaScript? So here are a couple options:
The first option is certainly simple enough. Want a Japanese version of the JavaScript file? Great, create a second copy and localize the text in that file. Now you have two .js files: an original (maybe English) version and a localized second version. In your HTML or JSP file, which are presumably localized as well, you include the localized JavaScript file specifically. <!-- English html file --> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" SRC="script/hello_en.js"></SCRIPT> Then, of course, in your Japanese HTML file, you'd have this: <!-- Japanese html file --> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" SRC="script/hello_ja.js"></SCRIPT> But I have a problem with this. I don't like duplicating the JavaScript code across multiple files, knowing that only the localized text is different. I suppose it doesn't matter much really, but there's always the possibility of getting code out of synch. In some ways I prefer the more complex second option. Instead of loading entirely different localized JavaScript files, this option loads a single JavaScript file but injects the localized strings into it at runtime. In this option, you make a call to a single script but provide a language parameter along with the script link. <head> <title>Localized JavaScript Demo</title> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" SRC="script/hello.js?lang=en"></SCRIPT> </head> Of course, in order to make this work, you now have to introduce a servlet or jsp to intercept this request, inject the localized strings, and return the localized JavaScript file. That's not that tough. The following jsp file accomplishes part of that:
<%@page contentType="text/JavaScript" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/fmt" prefix="fmt"%>
<fmt:setLocale value="${param['lang']}"/>
<fmt:setBundle basename="com.joconner.demo.res.hello"/>
var localizedStrings = {
HELLO: "<fmt:message key="HELLO"/>",
GOOD_MORNING: "<fmt:message key="GOOD_MORNING"/>",
GOOD_AFTERNOON: "<fmt:message key="GOOD_AFTERNOON"/>",
BYE: "<fmt:message key="BYE"/>"
};
function sayHello() {
alert(localizedStrings.HELLO);
};
The final JavaScript file has a Although they aren't shown here, resource bundles hold the localized text -- one bundle for each language. That's my quick solution. Have another idea for creating localized JavaScript files? Let me know! »
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Web Applications Comments
Comments are listed in date ascending order (oldest first)
Submitted by einwaller on Tue, 2008-08-19 03:55.
I wrote a post about that issue some months ago: http://dertompson.com/2008/04/17/internationalization-and-javascript/ and I found this one very interesting: http://www.lingoport.com/javascript-internationalization-%E2%80%93-the-g...
Simply said it is like your second solution, it includes a JSP that reads out the browser locale and creates the JavaScript constants used in the JS files.
Submitted by gangrelbr on Fri, 2008-08-29 18:17.
We do something like your second option for sometime now. But instead of
SRC="script/hello.js?lang=en"
we have just
SRC="script/hello.jsp"
So no extra servlet or JSP needed and no need to specify the lang by hand - its handled as all other JSP i18n.
-- jcranky.com
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