EXT: Language Selection based on domain¶

Thanks¶

This extension is a little variation of “rlmp_language_detection” written by Robert Lemke. Actually this extension is using 99% of code and documentation from the Robert's one, so please thank and support him instead than me if you feel in need of.

What does it do?¶

This small extension allows to automatically select a language based on the website domain name (HTTP_HOST).

This is so useful if you have a multilingual website with more than one domain name and you'd like to select the default language depending on the domain the user is using on its browser.

In case that a domain/language match the current page will be reloaded and the appropriate language will be set by using the "L" parameter.

Alternatively the multiple-tree concept for multi-langual websites may be used. In that case the visitor will be redirected to a certain page which acts as an entry page for the preferred language.

One-Tree vs. Multiple-Trees concept¶

While creating multi-lingual websites with TYPO3 generally you have two ways to do that:

• either create one page tree which contains a single page for each language, i.e. using TYPO3's language overlay concept
• or create multiple page trees, one for each language. In this case you want the visitor to start at different pages depending on the preferred language.

Installation¶

Installing this extension is fairly easy. Just download it via the extension manager (EM) and click on the install button.

Using the One-Tree concept with TYPO3¶

There's (almost) no configuration necessary! The only things you'll have to take into account are the titles of your supported languages. Let's see how it works:

You create your website's languages just as normal, but instead of choosing a descriptive title like "english" or "german" you'll have to use the two-letter country codes defined in ISO 3166 (see Appendix A for a full list).

You only have to define the addtitional languages, your default language (L=0) will be used whenever no other language seems to fit. So if your website provides german, english and spanish, your website languages list might look as follows:

Select a language's domain defaults¶

There's an extra field in the “sys_language” table that allows to select the domains for which the language will be default:

In this case, when a user hits “ http://es.typo3.org ”, the Spanish language will be selected automatically (if es.typo3.org resolves and is configured on your TYPO3 site, of course).

You can write more than one domain name, separated by commas.

Using the One-Tree concept with TYPO3 version 3.6.0 or later¶

If you have the table static_languages installed (which you should if you're running TYPO3 3.6.0 or later), it's even one step easier: You don't have to care about the language's title, just choose the right ISO code instead (as you can see in the next screenshot):

Defining the default language¶

You should define which language is your default language, ie. the ISO code of the language which will be shown with the parameter L set to zero. See the TypoScript Reference below how to set the default language.

Doing it with multiple page trees¶

So you need different structures for each language? Then you will likely choose the multiple page tree method (this method is explained on this page at typo3.org ).

In order to enable it, you'll have to add some TypoScript to the setup field of your root template. Just have a look at the example:

plugin.tx_rlmplanguagedetection_pi1 {
   useOneTreeMethod = 0
   multipleTreesRootPages  {
      de = 216
      en = 120
      es = 482
   }
}

First you disable the One-Tree-Method by setting useOneTreeMethod = 0. Then you define the unique ids of those pages being the root page for each language.

In our example visitors who prefer spanish will automatically guided to the page with the id 482 if they enter the website.

TypoScript Reference¶

...
multipleTreesRootPages  {
   de = 216
   en = 120
   es = 482
}

plugin.tx_rlmplanguagedetection_pi1 {
   defaultLang = de
}

1.0.0¶

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