Determine current language/locale from Javascript

answered 2014-11-28 14:36:36 +0800

cyiannoulis
1201 ● 10

The answer is yes... and no!

You may use the javascript function window.navigator.language or window.navigator.userLanguage to get the language of your browser and send it back to the server to store it for future use. Here is a simple example:

<zk>
<window id="winMain" title="Locale" border="none" 
        xmlns:n="native" xmlns:w="client" 
        apply="snippets.json.LocaleController">

    <vlayout>
        <button w:onClick="sendLocale();">Determine my locale</button> 
        Your language is: <textbox id="txtLang" />
    </vlayout>

</window>

<script type="text/javascript"><![CDATA[

    /*
     * Get the browser's language and send it back to server
     */
    function sendLocale() {
        var lang = window.navigator.userLanguage || window.navigator.language;
        zAu.send(new zk.Event(zk.Widget.$('$winMain'), 'onSendLanguage', lang));
    }   
]]></script>
</zk>

and a simple controller:

import org.zkoss.zk.ui.Component;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.event.Event;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.select.SelectorComposer;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.select.annotation.Listen;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.select.annotation.Wire;
import org.zkoss.zul.Textbox;

public class LocaleController extends SelectorComposer<Component> {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    @Wire private Textbox txtLang;

    @Listen("onSendLanguage = window")
    public void onSendLanguage(Event e) {
        String language = (String) e.getData();
        txtLang.setValue( language );
    }
}

But be aware that the returned language may differ and does not reflect the actual regional settings of the user. If you are using Internet Explorer then this function returns the language defined in the windows regional settings control panel. In all other browsers (chrome/ff/safari) returns the preferred language defined in the browser settings. Even if i am a user in Greece it doesn't mean i have changed the default language of my browser. So in most cases you will see 'en-US'.

Hope that helps

Costas