asp.net code 128 barcode Implementing personalization and localization in .NET framework

Encoding Code 128 Code Set B in .NET framework Implementing personalization and localization

Here we re using Mozilla Firefox, though all major browsers will allow you to do this. In Firefox, select Tools > Options > Content (tab) > Languages and you can choose your language preference. Figure 7.15 shows that we ve added Spanish (es-ES) to the list and moved it to the top. You ll also need the Web.config setting shown in listing 7.14.

<system.web> ... <globalization enableClientBasedCulture="true" uiCulture="auto" culture="auto" /> </system.web>

When you enable the culture setting, ASP.NET can apply globalization when the application runs. After doing this, our browser will submit the culture we prefer to the server. The server reads this and returns the localized resources (if they re available, of course). Figure 7.16 shows that after refreshing the browser, we re greeted with Spanish messages.

The content region of the page has also been localized. To add local resources for a single page, which are accessible on the view, add an App_LocalResources folder next to the .aspx files. Figure 7.17 shows this for our index view. It isn t as simple as this. Remember that .aspx views residing in the Views folder is all just convention. Due to the highly customizable nature of ASP.NET MVC, there s nothing to stop you from having your views be served from the database, or from another location on disk. This complicates the notion of a local resource because local is now dynamic. Luckily Matt Hawley has discovered this (the hard way) and posted his findings on his blog. You can find the post, ASP.NET MVC: Simplified Localization via ViewEngines, at http://mng.bz/6LcX. His solution involves deriving from the standard WebFormViewEngine to create a LocalizableWebFormsViewEngine. This derived class stores the Figure 7.17 Adding local resources for the view path in view data for each view, so when Index view the helper methods invoked from the view require a path, it can be taken directly from ViewData. We ll leave the rest of the details to Matt s excellent post. In these examples, we saw the basic resource API for .NET. In Web Forms, there are additional features in which server controls can declaratively display resources from the current culture. In ASP.NET MVC, none of these exist yet, but it d be trivial to create additional view helpers to accomplish this. Localization is an enormous topic, and unfortunately few developers pay attention to it. We ve just scratched the surface in this section. If you re building a site that will have users from different countries, be sure to look into localization.

The last feature we ll visit in this section is the ASP.NET site map. A site map allows you to define the hierarchy of your site in an XML file (called Web.sitemap) or another data source of your choosing. On your pages, you can include a SitemapPath control that displays breadcrumb navigation to the users, allowing them to navigate back to higher-level pages. In ASP.NET MVC, site maps work surprisingly well. You define a sample Web.sitemap file, such as that in listing 7.15, to define the URL hierarchy of the site. You can create a site map file by choosing Sitemap in the project s Add New Item dialog box.

< xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" > <siteMap xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/AspNet/SiteMap-File-1.0" > <siteMapNode url="/home" title="Home" description=""> <siteMapNode url="/home/index" title="Index" description="" /> <siteMapNode url="/home/about" title="About Us" description="" /> <siteMapNode url="/home/contact" title="Contact Us" description="" /> <siteMapNode url="/home/legal" title="Legal" > <siteMapNode url="/home/legal section=privacy" title="Privacy Policy" /> <siteMapNode url="/home/legal section=terms" title="Terms & Conditions" /> </siteMapNode> </siteMapNode> </siteMap>

Now that ASP.NET knows about our site s structure, we can display the current breadcrumb path to the user, using the standard SiteMapPath server control from Web Forms (listing 7.16). Luckily, this control doesn t require any server-side form tag (nor ViewState or postbacks). It renders just as you d expect it to.