A multi-language site? Really?
Today the great majority of microcomputer operating systems and applications have the capability of adapting the user environment to different groups of users – an interface in English for English-speaking users, in French for people in French-speaking parts of the world, in Spanish for Spanish speakers, etc.
The same is not true for Web sites: Most “multilingual sites” are simply a juxtaposition of sites that are actually very dissimilar in form and content.
Diptyque takes a radically different approach, based on software engineering: a common architecture and source code and a separate set of resources (text, images, video, interface) for each language supported. The result is greater adaptability and lower maintenance costs.
Diptyque has acquired strategic expertise in the areas of internationalization #1 (i18n) and localization #2 (L10n) and has developed a specific PHP middleware that greatly facilitates design and construction of multilingual Web sites.
Our Natural Language Selector (NLS) module provides language negotiation, persistence of language choice, management of XML lexicons, and inclusion of a contextualized “language switcher” that lets visitors move from one language to another from any page without having to change URLs or go back to the home page.
This solution is of course in full conformity with W3C recommendations and the ISO 639, ISO 3166 and ISO/IEC 10646 #3 standards.
- Internationalization is the processes and techniques that let an application manage several local cultural and linguistic contexts. ^1
- Localization is the process of translating an application’s user interface from one language to another, adapting it to the local cultural and linguistic context. ^2
- Universal Character Set (UCS) ^3
