Multi-site / Multi-languages with Sitecore

My current client has a number of domains for various regions and some regions will support multiple languages, including Right-to-Left languages such as Arabic. So let's highlight what needs to be done in Sitecore and our code to allow for this requirement.

Web.Config

Above you can see that we have 3 sites defined. The .com site has en as the default language, the .co.uk has en-GB and the .ae has ar-EG (arabic egyption). The next section goes over language fallback, but for now notice that .co.uk and .ae have a fallback to english.

Langugage Fallback

Alex Shyba who works for Sitecore has contributed a nice Shared Source module called Partial Language Fallback that allows Sitecore to fallback to a different language for an item or field if there is not a value available within the current language context. Alex goes into more detail about this module on his blog located here: http://sitecoreblog.alexshyba.com/2011/08/partial-language-fallback-module-update.html

Multiple Languages

The client's requirement is that the .ae site should default to arabic but allow the user to choose english if they prefer. We already set the default language to arabic in our web.config above, so we have that covered but now we need the ability to set a site's supported languages.

Above I have updated the Website Root template, which is the root template of each site item in my solution. We have added a Site_Languages treelist field that has the System/Languages as the source. This allows for the content authors to select which languages they want supported for each site.

Changing Languages

Now that the backend is setup, we can create a control that can be used in the site's footer to appear when 2 or more languages for the site is available and allow the user to select a different language.

LanguageContext.ascx

Our frontend code above is simply building out a dropdown list that is bound to the languages and it is adding a "selected" tag to the language that matches the current context.

LanguageContext.ascx.cs

The ManageLanguages function is in charge of binding the repeater to the available languages and it only shows the repeater if there are 2 or more languages available. So in our .com and .co.uk sites this control will not be displayed but it will show up on the .ae site.

If the request is a PostBack, then it will set the language context for the user and then redirect to the original url to ensure the page and any controls loaded before this point are aware of the context change.

site.js

Then the last piece is simply to wire up the select box to submit the form on value change.

Right-to-Left Support

Still in proof of concept mode on this one but what I have so far to support right to left languages is to check to see if the current language context is right to left and if it is then swap out the style sheet with a different one. I will post an update if this approach changes after our UI developers take a look at it.

CodeProject

eSATA + Virtual Machines = Goodness

I am not sure if it is the norm or not, but I like to create a virtual machine image for each project I work on. Being a consultant, I am usually on a few projects at a time and at very least need to refer back to past projects. Having a development environment on a virtual machine for each client makes it easy to stay organized and keep things isolated from one another.

The base image that I use to clone has a base install with the necessary IIS components, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2010 with the settings just how I like them along with the plug-ins such as ReSharper in place. I also have my AHK script in place as well, because your AHK scripts on your host machine will not work when in your VM (they do work when you are remoted into a server however).

My disk space was getting pretty tight this week because I started a new client and I duplicated an existing clients environment so I can test out upgrading to Sitecore 6.5 while still keeping the 6.4 in place. So today I went out and bought a BlacX SATA HDD eSATA + USB 2.0 Docking Station and a 500 GB drive. I could have gone larger or even gone with a solid state drive but I didn't want to shell out a lot just yet because I wasn't sure how performance would be. I tried to run my VMs from a MyBook back in 2006 and it just wasn't possible and I was a bit pesimistic.

Well after a day of developing, I can officially say, I like it a lot. It is actually a bit more responsive than when the image was on my host machine's hard drive. I imagine this is due to the fact that the host and VM do not have to compete for attention from a single drive.

I will probably end up getting a second docking station for the office so I just have to carry the small 2.5 mobile hard drive with me when commuting to/from work. The one downside to this is, I won't be able to code on the train because I will not have access to the external drive. I figure I can catch up on non-development tasks during my commute or if I need, I could keep a copy of one of my images on my laptop too and only use it when commuting (I will just need to remember to get latest/check-in to ensure the external image and local image are in synch).