Supporting multiple languages

Discussion in 'Programming' started by Triexa, Jul 6, 2009.

  1. #1
    So I'm working on a new project and its important to support multiple languages.

    I've thought of various methods including language files, a language lookup table (database), etc.

    Some of the main issues I see are:
    - We have "template text" (i.e. "Article name") and then the actual value from the database ("How to translate text"). Both of these need to be translated. The former would be inside a smarty template, the 2nd would be the $value, but would have been a value pulled from the database.
    - Depending on the method, making simple text changes could break the lookup and cause missing translations/orphan translations
    - We simply may not have a translation for something and would have to revert to the default language.
    - Efficiency!

    FYI the setup is PHP/MySQL/Smarty.

    I only looked into language support years ago and I would love to hear about some methods that have proved successful/feasible and those that have not...

    Any help/input/suggestions/links is greatly appreciated!
     
    Triexa, Jul 6, 2009 IP