Anders Hattestad
May 2, 2011
visibility 4509
star star star star star
(3 votes)

Itera.Translate a Web Control/BaseUserControl that translate key phrases

I like EPiServer a lot, but one of the areas I think need some work is the handling of translation of key strings. Or more précises how too easy add text that can be translated or changed by editors.   I have started on a module that can handle some of these issues.

The concept is simple. All text within  {{text}} will be added to a dynamic data store table, where it’s possible to specify new text. Either change the text, or make a translation. The original text is uses as the key, so different areas that use the same key will share the translations. The data store class looks like this:

Code Snippet
  1. public class TranslateStore : IDynamicData
  2. {
  3.     public EPiServer.Data.Identity Id { get; set; }
  4.     [EPiServerDataIndex]
  5.     public string Key { get; set; }
  6.     public string EN { get; set; }
  7.     public string NO { get; set; }
  8.  
  9.     public string GetText()
  10.     {
  11.         var lang = Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture.IetfLanguageTag;
  12.        
  13.         if (lang == "no" && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(NO))
  14.             return NO;
  15.         if (lang == "en" && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(EN))
  16.             return EN;
  17.         return Key;
  18.     }
  19.     
  20.     public static TranslateStore Find(string key)
  21.     {
  22.       
  23.         var q = (from item in Items where item.Key == key select item).ToList();
  24.         if (q != null && q.Count > 0)
  25.             return q[0];
  26.         var newItem = new TranslateStore();
  27.         newItem.Key = key;
  28.         Store.Save(newItem);
  29.         return newItem;
  30.     }
  31.    
  32.     public static IOrderedQueryable<TranslateStore> Items
  33.     {
  34.         get
  35.         {
  36.             return Store.Items<TranslateStore>();
  37.         }
  38.     }
  39.  
  40.     public static TranslateStore Load(EPiServer.Data.Identity id)
  41.     {
  42.         return Store.Load<TranslateStore>(id);
  43.     }
  44.     public static DynamicDataStore Store
  45.     {
  46.         get
  47.         {
  48.             return DynamicDataStoreFactory.Instance.GetStore(typeof(TranslateStore));
  49.         }
  50.     }
  51. }
The code can either be used by inherit from a user control class, or as a web Control.

Inside the Render method I do

Code Snippet
  1. protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)
  2. {
  3.     var page = this.Page as PageBase;
  4.     StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
  5.     StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(sb);
  6.     HtmlTextWriter htw = new HtmlTextWriter(sw);
  7.     base.Render(htw);
  8.     try
  9.     {
  10.         writer.Write(inner.TranslateText(sb, page, this.ClientID, DisplayName));
  11.     }
  12.     catch (System.Exception error)
  13.     {
  14.         base.Render(writer);
  15.         writer.Write(error.Message);
  16.     }
  17.    
  18. }

and the replacement is done by

Code Snippet
  1.   publicStringBuilder TranslateText(StringBuilder sb, PageBase page, string id, string displayName)
  2. {
  3.     var result = new StringBuilder();
  4.     try
  5.     {
  6.  
  7.         var start = DateTime.Now;
  8.         string content = sb.ToString();
  9.         var matches = FindMatches(content);
  10.         var start2 = DateTime.Now;
  11.         TranslateStore data = null;
  12.         int startIndex = 0;
  13.         foreach (var match in matches)
  14.         {
  15.             result.Append(content.Substring(startIndex, match.Index - startIndex));
  16.             string key = match.Value.Substring(2, match.Value.Length - 4);
  17.             if (!keys.ContainsKey(key.ToLower()))
  18.             {
  19.                 data = TranslateStore.Find(key);
  20.                 keys.Add(key.ToLower(), data);
  21.             }
  22.             else
  23.                 data = keys[key.ToLower()];
  24.             result.Append(data.GetText());
  25.             startIndex = match.Index + match.Length;
  26.         }
  27.         result.Append(content.Substring(startIndex));
  28.  
  29.  
  30.         if (HttpContext.Current.Items["TranslateMenu"] != null && HttpContext.Current.Request["translate"] != null && HttpContext.Current.Request["translate"]=="true")
  31.         {
  32.             var debug = new StringBuilder();
  33.             debug.AppendLine("Found matches:" + ((TimeSpan)(start2 - start)).TotalMilliseconds + "ms<br />");
  34.  
  35.             debug.AppendLine("replaced matches:" + ((TimeSpan)(DateTime.Now - start2)).TotalMilliseconds + "ms<br />");
  36.  
  37.             result.Append(EditMode(page, debug, displayName + "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Tot time:" + ((TimeSpan)(DateTime.Now - start)).TotalMilliseconds + "ms", id));
  38.         }
  39.         if (HttpContext.Current.Items["TranslateMenu"] != null && HttpContext.Current.Request["translate"] != null && HttpContext.Current.Request["translate"] == "all" && first)
  40.         {
  41.             var debug = new StringBuilder();
  42.             var query = from item in TranslateStore.Items select item;
  43.  
  44.             var allKeys =new Dictionary<string, TranslateStore>();
  45.             foreach (var item in query)
  46.                 allKeys.Add(item.Key, item);
  47.             result.Append(EditMode(page, debug, "ALL&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Tot time:" + ((TimeSpan)(DateTime.Now - start)).TotalMilliseconds + "ms", id, allKeys,true));
  48.         }
  49.  
  50.     }
  51.     catch (System.Exception error)
  52.     {
  53.  
  54.         result.Append(error.Message + error.StackTrace);
  55.  
  56.     }
  57.     return result;
  58. }

 

I’m also adding a context menu so this html code:

image

will appear like this:

image

and if I select Translate

image

this blue dragable div will lay it self over the text.

If you select Translate – all one blue box will appear with all the elements in the dynamic data store table displayed.

Use

Web Control

just add this line in the web.config pages/controls section

Code Snippet
  1. <add tagPrefix="Itera" namespace="Itera.WebControls" assembly="Itera.Translate" />

Then you can easy translate text like this

Code Snippet
  1. <Itera:Translate ID="Translate1" runat="server" DisplayName="MasterPage" >
  2.         <a href="#nonav1" class="hiddenTxt">{{G&aring; direkte til navigasjon}}</a>
  3.         <a href="#nonav2" class="hiddenTxt">{{G&aring; direkte til hovedinnhold}}</a>
  4.         <a href="#nonav3" class="hiddenTxt">{{G&aring; direkte til kontaktinfo}}</a>
  5. </Itera:Translate>

User Control

Just inherit from TranslateUserControl instead of UserControlBase and add the following element in the page directives

Code Snippet
  1. <%@ Control Language="C#" TranslateElements="true"

then you can either change text using {{}} like this

image

or from the code behind

Code Snippet
  1. var format = TranslateText("Denne saken har {0} kommentar(er)");

Code is in the code section here it’s compiled with CMS 6 R2, but it will work if you recompile it and remove the new the Data Store attributes.

May 02, 2011

Comments

error Please login to comment.
Latest blogs
New addon puts the optimization GUI for Optimizely Graph back in the CMS

I wanted the Graph UI for Pinned Results and Synonyms inside the CMS, so I created another addon.

Tomas Hensrud Gulla | Sep 1, 2026 |

From CMS Content to AI-Ready Content: A Practical Optimizely CMS 12 Approach

How structured content can help Optimizely CMS editors prepare content for search and AI-powered experiences Introduction The way users discover...

iliyas shaikh | Sep 1, 2026

Serving Heavy Multilingual Content Efficiently with Optimizely SaaS CMS

When building enterprise-grade applications on modern headless stacks, performance is governed by payload efficiency. Optimizely SaaS CMS and...

Vipin Banka | Aug 31, 2026

The Under-Documented Optimizely Caching API I Somehow Missed

I recently discovered some useful, but poorly documented, caching features in Optimizely CMS. Here’s how ReadThrough, ReadStrategy.Wait and master...

Dom Reilly | Aug 31, 2026 |