findinsite-js language support

Introduction

findinsite-js automatically responds to search queries using each user's preferred language and character set - if possible. (Users set their preferred language in their browser.)

Alternatively, a user can override the preferred language setting as described below. The override language setting is stored in a cookie (for one year).

Response language

Currently, fourteen response languages are supported, with English the default if the user's preferred language is not recognised.

The findinsite-js Configuration screen shows all the languages that are currently loaded. This should be the same as the list below. Some Western browsers will not be able to display the Asian language names correctly.

Response Character Set

findinsite-js always responds using the UTF-8 character set (charset). If any characters cannot be represented, then they are represented with HTML escape sequences.

findinsite-js uses the Java servlet engine's built-in facilities to do this job; if the servlet engine supports this functionality then most users' character sets should be supported.

Local language name	Language name in English	Language code	Country code	Supplied file
English	English	en		built in
Deutsch	German	de		/com/phdcc/lang/findDe3.hil
Español	Spanish	es		/com/phdcc/lang/findEs3.hil
Français	French	fr		/com/phdcc/lang/findFr3.hil
Hrvatski	Croatian	hr		/com/phdcc/lang/findHr3.hil
Italiano	Italian	it		/com/phdcc/lang/findIt3.hil
Nederlands	Dutch	nl		/com/phdcc/lang/findNl3.hil
Norsk	Norwegian	no		/com/phdcc/lang/findNo3.hil
Português	Portuguese	pt		/com/phdcc/lang/findPt3.hil
Slovenščina	Slovenian	sl		/com/phdcc/lang/findSl3.hil
العربية	Arabic	ar		/com/phdcc/lang/findAr3.hil
日本語	Japanese	ja		/com/phdcc/lang/findIt3.hil
简体中文	Simplified Chinese	zh		/com/phdcc/lang/findZh3.hil
繁体中文	Traditional Chinese	zh	TW	/com/phdcc/lang/findZhTW3.hil

The table above gives the ISO Language Code and where specified, the ISO Country Code. The two character lower case language codes are defined by ISO-639 at http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/related/iso639.txt. The two character upper case country codes are defined by ISO-3166 at http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/diverse/doc/ISO_3166.html.

User's Preference

findinsite-js works out which language to use by looking at a header sent by each user's browser. The Accept-Language HTTP header has a list of the user's preferred languages, specifying a language code, a country code and a priority.

findinsite-js tries to match the language and country codes first. Then a language code match is used. If there is no match then English is used.

User Language Override

By default the findinsite-js output includes set language links like this in the page footer:

Language: English Deutsch Español, etc.

If a user clicks on one of the named links, then findinsite-js will always use that language for its output. (The user's browser must have cookies enabled for this to work.) Click on the "Language" link to turn off this override.

The set language links are generated when %LANGUAGES% appears in one of the findinsite-js template files.

Adding more languages

You can add support for more languages (or change the existing languages) by setting the Additional Languages box in the Configuration screen Look and Feel section.

You need to alter or write a language file for each language. Please contact sales/support if you want to do this. It's not too hard - you just need a plain text editor.

Put the language file(s) in the same directory as findinsitejs.jar, eg the WEB-INF/lib/ directory. Then put a comma separated list of the language files in the Additional Languages box, eg:

/FindEnGB3.hil, /FindEl3.hil

If one of your language files specifies a language code / country code combination that already exists, then your language file will take precedence over the existing file.

findinsite-js has several language files built in to its runtime, findinsitejs.jar. The names of these built in files are given in the languages table at the top of this page. You can use an unzipper tool to extract these languages files.