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Classic ASP Design Tips

Multiple Language Web Site

These are opinions of J. Paul Schmidt, MBA.

No warranties are either expressed or implied.

To Use Paul's Services: Paul@Bullschmidt.com

If you are considering developing a multi-language Web site, perhaps have a file called something like translate.asp (which contains a function call TranslateIt()) included in each page. Thus toward the top of a regular Web page you might have the following:

And on Web pages wherever regular text is used, use the function from translate.asp instead.

So for a button that says "Close" in English and something with the same meaning in other languages the button might look like this:
<input type="submit" name="btnClose" value="<%= TranslateIt("Close") %>">

And there could be a session variable called Language that is set somewhere:
Session("Language") = "German"

And here is the TranslateIt() function in the translate.asp include file:
Function TranslateIt(pstrStatement)
  Select Case Session("Language")
    Case "English"
      Select Case pstrStatement
        Case "Close"
          TranslateIt = "Close"
        Case "Open"
          TranslateIt = "Open"
      End Select
    Case "German"
      Select Case pstrStatement
        Case "Close"
          TranslateIt = "Ende"
        Case "Open"
          TranslateIt = "Offen"
      End Select
  End Select
End Function

Thus the above Close button would say Ende because Session("Language") is set to be German.

Perhaps a similar concept is used at Google where on the main screen one can click on Preferences and change the interface language to be something other than what you're used to. Just for fun Google even lets you change it to be Elmer Fudd which is located in the listbox between Dutch and English. With the interface language set to Elmer Fudd the "Google Search" button now says "Google Seawch" and the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button now says "I'm Feewing Wucky."


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