Language feature

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson <gunnar at ringlink.org>]

There are a few remarks on the language feature in support request
http://sf.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=456830&group_id=15568&atid=215568
and since I believe they might be of common interest, I post a couple of
comments here.
First, there seems to be some confusion about how the language feature
works. It's described in section 2. at
http://sf.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=5971&group_id=15568, for
instance.
So, when *navigating* a ring, the displayed language is determined by
the preferred language setting in the viewer's browser. The user who
submitted the request seems not to appreciate that:
> My ring is international and I'd like to keep the english results
> pages all the time.
That statement is contradictory IMO. A surfer who has a preferred
language set in the browser, can be expected to *want* information to be
displayed in that language whenever it's available. Ringlink 2.0 is
multilingual, and a multilingual resource leaves the decision, about
which language to be displayed, to the surfer. In other words, this is
about the convenience of the surfer, and it's a natural feature in any
web resource that claims to be international.
> Can't we just disable multilanguage packs somewhere in the config
> file?
If Ringlink has been installed with several language files, there is no
'switch' on the ring level to disable the ability to display the browser
preferred language when navigating a ring. I didn't anticipate that
need, and I still don't see the need for refusing the surfers the option
to have the information displayed in their preferred languages.
But if you want to install a Ringlink system with only one language, it
can be easily done. Then you simply install it with only one PO file.
That gives you a one language system for one language rings.
/ Gunnar