Language switcher

[zarino]

Language switcher for #676.

Closed:

Open:

Feels a bit fiddly. Will revisit tomorrow morning with fresh eyes.

[wfdd]

A few observations:

• get_language_info corrupts the language codes and names of languages not built into Django. It works fine with Argentinian Spanish:

  In [1]: from django.utils import translation
  
  In [2]: from django.conf import settings
  
  In [3]: settings.LANGUAGES
  Out[3]: 
  [('el', 'Greek'),
  ('en', 'English'),
  ('es-ar', 'Argentinian Spanish'),
  ('fr', 'French'),
  ('cy-gb', 'Welsh'),
  ('es-cr', 'Costa Rican Spanish')]
  
  In [4]: translation.get_language_info('es-ar')
  Out[4]: 
  {'bidi': False,
  'code': 'es-ar',
  'name': 'Argentinian Spanish',
  'name_local': 'español de Argentina'}

  But not the Costa Rican variety:

  In [5]: translation.get_language_info('es-cr')
  Out[5]: {'bidi': False, 'code': 'es', 'name': 'Spanish', 'name_local': 'español'}

  I think it'd be best to bypass get_language_info_list and list our languages for translation in mysite.extra_translations. We can extend django.conf.locale.LANG_INFO with Costa Rican Spanish and Welsh.

• It should be possible to POST on click/select with XHR, serving the original dropdown to clients that support JavaScript. Having to press 'Go' is not ideal.
• Perhaps in a separate PR, it should be made possible to override the User-Agent locale as the default locale.

[zarino]

It should be possible to POST on click/select with XHR, serving the original dropdown to clients that support JavaScript. Having to press 'Go' is not ideal.

Already working on it! 👍

[zarino]

@struan @mhl: Commit 31bb5384af1e215ff7acb74ba07cf19924dc2840 reverts all the custom dropdown menu styling and instead styles up the <select> element. If JavaScript is available, the submit button is hidden, and the form is automatically submitted whenever you change the <select> value.

Styling select boxes is the devil’s work, so I’ve tested this in IE8 and above, modern and old Firefox, and a few versions of Safari to check it all looks ok. In IE8–9 you get a duplication of dropdown arrows (one on the left, one on the right) but I think that's acceptable.

[mhl]

I think @wfdd's first point still needs to be addressed here - I'm assuming that's why the following fails:

• (In chrome) set your first language to be Greek
• Reload the front page, text appears in Greek as expected
• Select Welsh from the language drop-down
• The form is POSTed, the page reloads as expected, but the text is still in Greek <-- the bug
• Select Argentinian Spanish from the language drop-down
• The form is POSTed, the page reloads as expected, and the text is in Argentinian Spanish