5

I've tried to re-phrase my question in my head a million times, as there seem to be quite a number of approaches and solutions, but finally decided to ask it in a very general way:

What is the best way to localize variables in external javascript, such as help hints, tooltips, and such?

Currently I have my js pasted raw into PHP Code, in as many instances as there are languages on the site, and I'm switching the variable set based on:

<?php
  global $language;
  $lang = $language->language;
?>

but I strongly dislike having a gazillion of copies of same text throughout the site. This is good for testing, but for production I want just one javascript file which I could call with parameters, something like:

<script src="myscript.js?hl=<?php print $lang?>"><script>
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3 Answers 3

Reset to default
7

Drupal has an in-built mechanism to handle this sort of thing, the Drupal.settings javascript variable you'll see in the source code for any Drupal site.

Used in conjunction with drupal_add_js() in your PHP code you can easily pass variables to javascript, which will be available in your custom script files.

For example in a custom module you could add a settings variable like this:

global $language;
$mySettings = array('language' => $language->language);

drupal_add_js(array('mymodule' => $mySettings), 'setting');

Then in your javascript file you can pick up that variable like this:

(function($) {
  $(function() {
    var language = Drupal.settings.mymodule.language;
    if (language == 'en') {
      // etc
    }
  });
})(jQuery);

Using this method your template code can be a lot cleaner and you don't need to worry about passing URL variables to the javascript file, or building up the javascript in PHP any more.

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2
  • Wonderful concept, even though it requires writing a module ;-) Thanks a bunch!
    – no more drupal
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 21:30
  • @Artur No probs :) I'm pretty sure you could do this at the theme level, say in hook_preprocess_page() in the template.php file, so you wouldn't necessarily have to write a module
    – Clive ♦
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 21:32
5

If you're talking localization, there's also a t() version of Javascript in the form of Drupal.t(), e.g.

   $("#div").text(Drupal.t('Mouseover tooltip'));

Your script will need to be added by drupal_add_js().

See http://drupal.the-aim.be/drupal-translate-jquery for a bit more on it.

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1

Instead of passing the language in a setting or parsing the URL you can also use this code to get the actual language of the site:

var lang = $('html').attr('lang');

This works as all themes should render (at least) this info:

<html class="" lang="<?php print $language->language; ?>" dir="<?php print $language->dir; ?>">

References:

JAVASCRIPT get current language!!!

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