Multi-language PHP: internationalisation for PHP developers

Course Curriculum

Chapter 1: Introduction: software installation, configuration and setup

Lecture 1: Introduction and welcome

Lecture 2: Install a web server with PHP, a database server and phpMyAdmin

Lecture 3: Optional: configure a virtual host with its own root folder and hostname

Lecture 4: Install the Composer dependency manager

Lecture 5: Enable the PHP internationalization extension

Chapter 2: An introduction to translating content using PHP

Lecture 1: Translate a page by copying the entire page and translating all the text in it

Lecture 2: Translate a page by using conditional statements for every string

Lecture 3: Store translated strings in an array with one array for each language

Lecture 4: Display any character by encoding files using UTF-8

Chapter 3: Getting the language from the URL

Lecture 1: Language code standards and passing the language code in the URL

Lecture 2: Get the language code from the query string

Lecture 3: Get the language code from a subfolder or URL segment

Lecture 4: Get the language code from a subdomain

Lecture 5: Get the language code from the top-level domain

Chapter 4: Locale identifiers and validating the language from the URL

Lecture 1: Add an I18n class with a list of supported languages

Lecture 2: Combine language codes and region codes to create locale identifiers

Lecture 3: Canonicalise the locale code from the URL

Lecture 4: Get the best match from the list of supported locales

Lecture 5: Redirect to the default locale if the value in the URL is invalid

Lecture 6: Declare the language of the HTML document with the lang attribute

Chapter 5: Detecting the visitor's preferred language

Lecture 1: Get language preferences from the browser: the HTTP Accept-Language header

Lecture 2: Parse the Accept-Language header to get a list of locales in order of preference

Lecture 3: Compare supported locales to the browser preferences and choose the best match

Lecture 4: Get the best match to the browser preferences using just the language codes

Lecture 5: Refactor the code to make it clearer

Lecture 6: Geolocation: matching the user's IP address to their location

Lecture 7: Use a geolocation API to get the country code from the IP address

Chapter 6: Using gettext with PHP

Lecture 1: The options for storing translations in separate files

Lecture 2: The PHP gettext extension and gettext function for marking translatable strings

Lecture 3: Create the folders to store the gettext translation files

Lecture 4: Install the Poedit editor and create a .po translation file

Lecture 5: Configure gettext to use the translation file and show the translations

Chapter 7: Using MoTranslator as a gettext-compatible alternative

Lecture 1: MoTranslator: a .mo-file-compatible alternative to gettext

Lecture 2: Using MoTranslator with its gettext compatibility functions

Lecture 3: Configure Poedit to extract MoTranslator translations

Lecture 4: Use the simpler MoTranslator object API

Lecture 5: Using real or keyword messages: the advantages and disadvantages

Chapter 8: Translating dynamic content: variable substitution, plurals, decimals and dates

Lecture 1: Including variables in translated strings: use sprintf with gettext

Lecture 2: Display plural forms of messages using ngettext

Lecture 3: Decimal separators: format decimal numbers based on the locale

Lecture 4: Translate day and month names in dates based on the locale

Chapter 9: Translating content unsuited to gettext: long text, databases and images

Lecture 1: Handle long strings of text in separate files

Lecture 2: Display a message if the file containing the translation is unavailable

Lecture 3: Use a plain-text formatting language to help translators

Lecture 4: Convert translations in separate files to Markdown

Lecture 5: Translate data from a database: multiple columns in one table

Lecture 6: Translate data from a database: separate table for the translations

Lecture 7: Display localised versions of images that contain text

Chapter 10: Selecting and remembering the language

Lecture 1: Add navigation links for switching between languages

Lecture 2: Language switching links: what they should say and where to put them

Lecture 3: Remove code duplication: extract common i18n code out to separate files

Lecture 4: Add a second page and include the common i18n code

Lecture 5: Calculate the full current URL from the $_SERVER data

Lecture 6: Generate the data for the language navigation links

Lecture 7: Add the language navigation links to the HTML

Lecture 8: Remember the selected locale in a cookie

Lecture 9: Redirect to the locale remembered in the cookie

Chapter 11: Conclusion

Lecture 1: Conclusion