Is it possible to use specific URL to determine current locale?

[kiaking]

Hi, when I create multilingual app, I want the URL to always show current locale. What I want to do is this.

If the current locale is English, the url should be:

http://example.com/about

If the current locale is French, the url should be:

http://example.com/fr/about

This means that user can manually type desired locale in the URL and jump to the page of that locale. This is needed when I want share the website URL with different language to my friends.

For example, apple.com has this logic.

Is this something that this package is capable of? Or do I need to create such routing feature (middleware) by my self?

[denour]

You can create a route group where recibes the languague as a param and you put at the end of the route as a fallback to your English routes. Then in the route group you put the same English routes but u set the localización language as the param that you get. Then u just create the folders of the different language that u want to Support in resources/languages.

[kiaking]

Thank you for the answer. But I'm not sure if I'm following. So would my routes file be like this?

Route::get('{lang}/about', 'AboutController@index');
Route::get('about', 'AboutController@index');

If not, could you give me an example code?

[denour]

//default English routes

Route::group(['prefix' => '{Lang},'middleware' => 'langMiddleware'],function () {
Route::get('about','aboutController');
});

// On middleware

// Some validations if language doesnt exist throw 404 or redirect to English version

//You need to add App in the middleware and add the $lang in the function
App::setLocale($lang);

[denour]

See this to understand more about localization https://laravel.com/docs/5.2/localization

[kiaking]

OK, so the problem with that approach is that I need to create 2 routes. Since route group is prefixed, there are no route that matches example.com/about. I need to declare non prefix routes as well right?

So it has to like this.

Route::group(['middleware' => 'langMiddleware'], function () { 
    Route::get('{Lang}/about', 'AboutController@index');
    Route::get('about', 'AboutController@index');
});

Anyways, I understood that this package doesn't offer this part of feature that I should create it my own. That was my intention of creating this issue so please close it.

Beside that, I think this package is wonderful and thank you so much for publishing it.

[ied3vil]

No, actually you don't need the /fr/ preffix for your routes!!

Once you go to /lang/fr -- the locale is set to french until it is changed again! Thus, all your localization functions will be translated from french. When you access the switcher URL for changing the language (/lang/en for example) the locale is set to english and remembered.

Because you register the language switcher's middleware, it will automatically set the last chosen locale for every request, removing the need for language-preffixed routes!

I have not implemented this functionality because i think that URLs should remain unchanged regardless the language chosen! @kiaking if you find difficulties to use the language switcher, please let me know and i will assist you!

Later edit: Refer to the readme, read it carefully to understand better how to use the language switcher, it should set you on the right path!

[kiaking]

@ied3vil Thank you for the response.

I think I do understand how this package works. That I can go to lang/fr to switch locale of the application. Also I understand that it will redirect user back or where ever depending on configuration I make. Which means, locale is disappeared from URL after changing the language.

It's totally fine with this approach. But in some case, I want current locale to be visible in URL. Like www.apple.com does. This is my personal opinion and needs.

I have not implemented this functionality because i think that URLs should remain unchanged regardless the language chosen!

This is all I wanted to know. The intention of this issue was to get this answer. And I'm satisfied with it.

Though I'll point out few reasons why I want locale to be in URL, in case it might be helpful for you to have feedback.

• If I want share my URL, for example http://example.com/about, to my friend and it defaults to English page. If my friend is Japanese, I want send him URL with http://example.com/ja/about, instead of telling my friend "Go this page, and then scroll down to the bottom of the page and hit Japanese link to change your locale".
• You might think I should create automatic language directing middleware from the accessing users browser and redirect the user. I hate that when some site does it for me, so I want explicitly set locale on my URL.
• It's not must, but seems to me that Google is saying it might be good idea to separate URL (personally, I don't care this as much).

But again, I'm not forcing you to add this feature nor saying implementing this feature is a good thing. There is a package which does that (but this one does not support route caching so I'm not using it) so people can use that package instead if they want locale to be in URL.

So I ended up creating my own package which does set locale in URL, plus detecting language from browser (by option), plus remembering last locale user chose, plus enabling caching of Laravel routes by php artisan route:cache. But it's really complicated and I strongly wish someone have just created this feature. So I can use that lol.

I learned so much from this package. Thank you for creating this. If you think my opinion are worth discussing about as a feature request, I'm more than happy to continue this discussion. But if not, please close this issue. I got answer I wanted and I'm happy with it.

[ied3vil]

Thank you very much for clearing it up! Your response has brought some light on the reasons why you want to have the locale in the URL. The reason why i didn't go this way is mostly because it is not recommended by SEO.

I think this should be a feature, so the package is easier to use! I will think about how to implement this and make it configurable so people can use it the way you want it, or somehow very similar - taking seo into consideration. Also the auto-detect feature is a nice to have, and i will definetly implement this too! I will also have a look over your library to see how you've did yours!

[kiaking]

@ied3vil Thank you so much! Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

One question about SEO.

The reason why i didn't go this way is mostly because it is not recommended by SEO.

Do you ave any source where you found this information? It seems to me it's encouraged to separate URL if you think about SEO.

Refs

• https://lingohub.com/blog/2015/10/seo-for-multilingual-websites/
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10245655/seo-for-multilingual-sites-language-specific-results-without-changing-url
• https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en

[ied3vil]

Haven't done SEO in awhile but i thought it's best to keep the languages out of the URLs. I will implement this as a feature in the library so users can chose how to use library depending on their needs - even considering a redirect option from the /fr/about to /about after changing the locale.

[kiaking]

OK, thx for your effort. I'll be so appreciated.

[rjayako]

was this request implemented?

[ied3vil]

No not yet... haven't had time to refactor the library to accomodate for custom URLs