# Japanese and i18n in Radiant

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/japanese-and-i18n-in-radiant/144792>\
**Category:** Radiant CMS\
**Created:** [August 2, 2008, 3:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/japanese-and-i18n-in-radiant/144792 "2008-08-02T03:47:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/6a8cbe/32.png) [@rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubella)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 3:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/japanese-and-i18n-in-radiant/144792/1 "2008-08-02T03:47:32Z")

</div>

Hi All,

[sorry if this ends up being a double-post]  
Ie$B!Ge(Bve been having lots of fun with making a bilingual site in  
Radiant. Here are some current problems that I hope someone can  
suggest fixes for:

# Pages in Shift-JIS charset

Most Japanese cellphones require Shift-JIS for mobile sites, but the  
content-type field in Layout ignores charsets. Can anyone suggest how  
Ie$B!Ge(Bd add support for charsets to this, or another way to work  
around it?

# Mailer extension and sending ISO-2022-JP emails

Despite ActiveMailer docs[1] containing this:  
e$B!He(Bdefault\_charset - The default charset used for the body and to  
encode the subject. Defaults to UTF-8. You can also pick a different  
charset from inside a method with charset.e$B!Ie(B

Setting this in environment.rb:

```
config.action_mailer.default_charset = "iso-2022-jp"

```

still results in my email header and body being UTF-8 encoded, with  
body settings of:  
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8  
Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-printable

If I add this to environment.rb:

```
  config.action_mailer.default_content_type = "text/

```

plain;charset=iso-2022-jp"

I get the bizarre combo of utf-8 encoded subject and body settings of:  
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8  
Content-Transfer-Encoding: Iso-2022-jp

which is even worse. A Japanese article[2] suggests wrapping  
ActionMailer in TMail then iso-2022-jp and base64 the email, but I  
guess that requires a hack or an extension, right? heree$B!Ge(Bs their  
code:

module ActionMailer #:nodoc:  
class Base  
require ‘nkf’  
class \<\< self  
def base64(text, charset=“iso-2022-jp”, convert=true)  
if convert  
if charset == “iso-2022-jp”  
text = NKF.nkf(‘-j -m0’, text)  
end  
end  
text = [text].pack(‘m’).delete(“e(J\re(J\n”)  
“=?#{charset}?B?#{text}?=”  
end  
end  
end  
end

class Notifications \< ActionMailer::Base  
@@default\_charset = “iso-2022-jp”  
@@encode\_subject = false  
#…  
end  
Then in test:

class NotificationsTest \< Test::Unit::TestCase  
CHARSET = “iso-2022-jp”  
#…  
private  
def encode(subject)  
ActionMailer::Base.base64(subject, CHARSET)  
end  
end

Anyone ever managed to get emails in non-UTF8 working

Finally, whate$B!Ge(Bs up with i18n and how can I help? I cane$B!Ge(Bt  
even get the Jargon branch (with the partially baked gibberish  
support) to run anymoree$B!De(B

peace - oli

[1] [ActionMailer::Base](http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionMailer/Base.html)  
[2] [http://wiki.fdiary.net/rails/?ActionMailer](http://wiki.fdiary.net/rails/?ActionMailer)

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**Author:** ![rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/6a8cbe/32.png) [@rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubella)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 8:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/japanese-and-i18n-in-radiant/144792/2 "2008-08-02T20:19:31Z")

</div>

Hi Oli,

I’m also faced with a Radiant that needs to run two multiple  
languages, however, non of them Japanese, so can’t help you there.

But I’m eager to hear if you have found a fitting extension for  
handling multiple languages. I’m considering using Loren J.'s  
language switch  
([GitHub - lorenjohnson/radiant-language-switch: A basic internationalization extension for Radiant CMS which allows simple template switching based upon language.](http://github.com/lorenjohnson/radiant-language-switch/tree/master)  
), but maybe there is something better or different or more advanced  
out there?

Cheers,  
Casper F.

---

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**Author:** ![rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/6a8cbe/32.png) [@rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubella)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 9:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/japanese-and-i18n-in-radiant/144792/3 "2008-08-02T21:28:01Z")

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Oli and Casper,

I would love some assistance getting Radiant on Rails 2.1  
Rails edge has some localization and translation features built in, so  
moving to 2.1 would get us there faster (I hope).

If you’d like to help, please fork my rails\_2\_1\_0 branch and contribute:

> **[GitHub - saturnflyer/radiant at rails\_2\_1\_0](https://github.com/saturnflyer/radiant/tree/rails_2_1_0)**
>
> rails\_2\_1\_0

I’ve only had the time to get so far with it, so assistance would be  
greatly appreciated.  
So this isn’t a fast solution for the problems you’re trying to solve,  
but I hope it’ll be good for the long term of Radiant development.

-Jim

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**Author:** ![rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/6a8cbe/32.png) [@rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubella)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2008, 4:42am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/japanese-and-i18n-in-radiant/144792/4 "2008-08-04T04:42:39Z")

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Hey Casper,

On Aug 3, 2008, at 3:19 AM, Casper F. wrote:

> I’m eager to hear if you have found a fitting extension for handling  
> multiple languages. I’m considering using Loren J.'s language  
> switch ([GitHub - lorenjohnson/radiant-language-switch: A basic internationalization extension for Radiant CMS which allows simple template switching based upon language.](http://github.com/lorenjohnson/radiant-language-switch/tree/master)  
> ), but maybe there is something better or different or more advanced  
> out there?

Ie$B!Ge(Bm using the Language Redirect extension:  
[https://svn1.hosted-projects.com/medlar/language\_redirect\_extension/](https://svn1.hosted-projects.com/medlar/language_redirect_extension/)

You create language code root articles (/en, /ja etc) and build your  
localised site under there. When a user visits the domain root,  
theye$B!Ge(Bre automatically redirected to one of the localised roots  
based on browsere$B!Ge(Bs accept language. This doesne$B!Ge(Bt work  
well with the automatic breadcrumb tag though (you get the site root  
and the locale root, which end up pointing to the same thing).

Another option is the translator extension:  
[http://dev.philburrows.com/svn/radiant-extensions/translator/trunk/README](http://dev.philburrows.com/svn/radiant-extensions/translator/trunk/README)

It seems you create a page part for each language, then the extension  
displays the relevant part based on browsere$B!Ge(Bs accept language or  
session variable.

There might be some more info in the mailing list archives

peace - oli

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**Author:** ![rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/6a8cbe/32.png) [@rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubella)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 9:52am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/japanese-and-i18n-in-radiant/144792/5 "2008-08-06T09:52:23Z")

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Hi Jim,

Definitely a great initiative to get Radiant on 2.1. If you could add  
some kind of status and list of bugs and stuff to do perhaps on the  
Github wiki, I’d like to contribute.

However, I don’t think the i18n stuff in edge will be of much help  
when it comes to translating Radiant pages. There will still need to  
be an extension that allow users of Radiant to translate inside the  
Radiant admin one way or another. That extension could, and should,  
use the standardized i18n interface, but the approach and an  
appropriate backend will still be up to the extension developer to  
select.

Cheers,  
Casper

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**Author:** ![rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/6a8cbe/32.png) [@rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubella)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/japanese-and-i18n-in-radiant/144792/6 "2008-08-06T13:34:35Z")

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Casper,

I’ll definitely do that and post back when I do. Probably by next week.  
Rails Edge I18n bits won’t solve the problem, but it’ll be a step in  
the right direction.

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**Author:** ![rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/6a8cbe/32.png) [@rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubella)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 2:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/japanese-and-i18n-in-radiant/144792/7 "2008-08-06T14:08:00Z")

</div>

I just went with Translator and really liked it. I had built several  
pages with Language Redirect, which was one of the first Radiant  
behaviours.

I think that the page part solution is the best, both for building the  
site and maintaining it. It also makes switching the language, but  
keeping the same content trivial. Two page trees is a bit hard to  
maintain, but is of course the most robust system.

But I agree, once again, not a one size fits all situation.

Keith

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**Author:** ![rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/6a8cbe/32.png) [@rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubella)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 2:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/japanese-and-i18n-in-radiant/144792/8 "2008-08-06T14:02:08Z")

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Hi Oli,

Three extensions, three different approaches to translation:

Language Redirect: Separate site trees for each language.  
Translator: Separate page parts for each language, but a single site  
tree.  
Language Switch: All translations in the same page and part, separated  
by tags that indicates the language.

Language Redirect seems to be the most widely used, and the way to go  
if you want different site trees for different languages, i.e. only  
translate a subset of pages. I also like that it is very compact and  
has clean code. On the other hand, it seems quite messy to have to  
keep several different site trees in sync.

Language Switch gives you the “clean” site tree and “clean” use of  
page parts, but on the other hand you need to use the tags indicating  
language all over. Also, this extension completely disables all  
caching at the moment.

I think I’m gonna go with Translator for now. Since I only need to run  
the site in two languages, and I only have two page parts per page, it  
won’t be too cluttered when editing a page. This extension also seems  
to handle caching quite well, although it happens through some pretty  
hackish code that might break Radiant at some point.

This is yet another example of the fact that when it comes to i18n and  
l10n, one solution never seems to fit all.

Cheers,  
Casper

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**Author:** ![rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/6a8cbe/32.png) [@rubella](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubella)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2008, 4:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/japanese-and-i18n-in-radiant/144792/9 "2008-08-03T16:19:03Z")

</div>

Casper F. wrote:

> there?  
> I do handle multiple languages on my site using a rather simple  
> extension that I wrote to create a language bar based on some naming  
> conventions that I follow. That said, I think all the content is in  
> UTF-8. So, I may not be able to help here.

What exactly is it that you’re looking for?

Cheers,  
Mohit.  
8/3/2008 | 10:17 PM.