Zend framework 2 - How to make a language switcher

Question

I am developing a Zend Framework 2 Application and now I want to implement a language switcher from where guest/registered user can choose the language they want, the thing I can't understand is how is it made in Zend Framework 2 using the storage ( not from urls ), I want to keep the preffered language of guest in the storage once he selects one, and for the registered users I can retrieve the preffered one from cookie/database and reuse it with storage. But where and how should I start/implement this? Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Setup your Locales in your global.config.php :

'locale' => array(
    'default' => 'en_US',
    'available'     => array(
        'de_DE' => 'Deutsch',
        'nl_NL' => 'Dutch',
        'en_US' => 'English',
        'fr_FR' => 'French',
    ),
),

So in your Application\\Module.php you can add a method which sets the default Zend\\Translator\\Translator :

class Module {

    public function onBootstrap(MvcEvent $e)
    {
        $applicaton = $e->getApplication();
        $serviceManager = $application->getServiceManager();
        // Just a call to the translator, nothing special!
        $serviceManager->get('translator');
        $this->initTranslator($e);

        // Etc, more of your bootstrap function.
    }

    protected function initTranslator(MvcEvent $event)
    {
        $serviceManager = $event->getApplication()->getServiceManager();

        // Zend\Session\Container
        $session = New Container('language');

        $translator = $serviceManager->get('translator');
        $translator
            ->setLocale($session->language)
            ->setFallbackLocale('en_US');
    }
}

So now the default Locale is en_US as the session has no Locale available. For changing the locale you need to catch the users input and validate the available locales you support, provided in your global.config.php . So in order to change it you might need to add a controller action which catches the input of the user and sets the new locale. Example of the controller action without any form usage!

public function changeLocaleAction() 
{
    // New Container will get he Language Session if the SessionManager already knows the language session.
    $session = new Container('language');
    $language = $this->getRequest()->getPost()->language;
    $config = $this->serviceLocator->get('config');
    if (isset($config['locale']['available'][$language]) {
        $session->language = $language;
        $this->serviceLocator->get('translator')->setLocale($session->language);
    }
}

The session allows the users to change their locale and remember it until the session ends, so they won't need to change it when they get back after a while. Hope this will help you and can help you to write some code to save it for your registered users on your application.

Answer 2

I am not sure, my approach will work or not. Please try:

We can have 3 params for translate method.

$translator->translate($message, $textDomain, $locale);

The $locale parameter is taken from the locale, set in the translator and that's why we usually not set manually in the code. So, you can use like below :

$localeVar = 'de_DE';  OR  $localeVar = 'en_US'; // according to user's selection
echo $this->translate("Translate me", $textDomain, $localeVar);

You can have a key value pair - key can be user selected language and value can be any one of the language.

array(
    'english' => 'en_US',
    'deutch' => 'de_DE',
    'frecnh' => 'fr_FR',
    // other language
);