I have my own thoughts how \"ideal\" multilingual web application or web site sh
ID: 648730 • Letter: I
Question
I have my own thoughts how "ideal" multilingual web application or web site should behave. Can you think of better solution? What are the pros and cons of them? What are cons of the solution I am presenting bellow? Any comments?
My "ideal" solution:
application should read browser language (from Accept Language header)
user should be able to override his/her default language in options (logged-on users will see the web site in this language no matter of current browser settings; useful when one is travelling for example)
on top of this, when lang attribute is specified in URL (see example bellow), user will see the page in language specified by this attribute (both accept language and user settings would be overridden; this could be useful for book-marking, sharing, RSS feeds selection, web crawlers).
Explanation / Answer
One definite Pro from your approach is that it takes into account users traveling to international locations. I have recently moved to an Arabic speaking country and can't tell you how frustrated I get everyday with the numerous web applications that provide me with the Arabic version of the site, because they use my IP to find my location and present the site in that locations language.