I used to have something like this:
We suggest you read our @Html.ActionLink("help page", "Help", "Home") before
proceeding.
nice and clean. then I decided we needed to internationalise the app. I couldn't figure out a better way to deal with the above than to store the following string in the resource file:
We suggest you read our [HelpPage] before proceeding.
and then on the view I have to do:
@MvcHtmlString.Create(this.Resource("Help").ToString()
.Replace("[HelpPage]",
@Html.ActionLink("help page", "Help", "Home").ToString()
)
)
What other strategies can you use to internationalize using Razor?
this.Resource()
is a page extension that calls .GetLocalResourceObject()
and returns an MvcHtmlString
You should create a separate code-behind method that replaces any [placeholder]
s with actual links, then call that helper in Razor views.
This will give you a single place to change the code that fills in the links.
I was having the same problem. Instead of using placeholders, I use the same formatting in my resource strings as if I were using String.Format()
.
An example of using this; my resource strings
LogOnText1 | Please enter your user name and password. {0} if you don't have an account.
LogOnText1Register | Register
and my view (razor):
@MvcHtmlString.Create(String.Format(ViewRes.AccountStrings.LogOnText1,
Html.ActionLink(ViewRes.AccountStrings.LogOnText1Register, "Register")))
I think it's a bit cleaner
so here's what I ended up writing:
public static class PageExtensions
{
public static MvcHtmlString Resource(
this WebViewPage page, string key,
Dictionary<string, MvcHtmlString> tokenMap
) {
HttpContextBase http = page.ViewContext.HttpContext;
string text = (string) http.GetLocalResourceObject(page.VirtualPath, key);
return new TagReplacer(text, tokenMap).ToMvcHtmlString();
}
where the tag replacements gets done like this:
public class TagReplacer
{
Dictionary<string, MvcHtmlString> tokenmap;
public string Value { get; set; }
public TagReplacer(string text, Dictionary<string, MvcHtmlString> tokenMap)
{
tokenmap = tokenMap;
Regex re = new Regex(@"\[.*?\]", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
Value = re.Replace(text, new MatchEvaluator(this.Replacer));
}
public string Replacer(Match m)
{
return tokenmap[m.Value.RemoveSet("[]")].ToString();
}
public MvcHtmlString ToMvcHtmlString()
{
return MvcHtmlString.Create(Value);
}
}
so in my code I can now call it like this:
@{
Dictionary<string, MvcHtmlString> tagmap = new Dictionary<string, MvcHtmlString>() {
{ "HelpPage", Html.ActionLink("help page", "Help", "Home") }
};
}
and elsewhere:
@this.Resource("Help", tagmap)
any suggestions for improvement most welcome