Question

I have a multilingual company website (Visual Studio / VB / ASP.NET 4.0), and when, on the homepage, you click a flag, the text changes to that language and stays with you the entire session, after I made a class, BasePage.vb. Everything works great, but the URL never changes …. clients.aspx remains clients.aspx although the text DOES switch to Dutch.

It’s been recommended by @Aritstos to make it so it looks like clients.aspx?lang=nl as opposed to just clients.aspx in another language.

Currently, my asp homepage hyperlinks that work look like this:

      <asp:LinkButton ID="LinkButton7" runat="server"
      CommandArgument="nl" OnClick="RequestLanguageChange_Click"
      class="flagbutton">      
      <asp:Image ID="Image1" runat="server" ImageUrl="~/images/flagnl.png"
      tooltip="Bekijk deze website in het Nederlands" title="Bekijk deze website 
      in het Nederlands"/>
      <img class="map" src="images/flaghovernl.png" alt=""/>
      </asp:LinkButton>

I tried to change the asp links to html links, like this:

     <a href="default.aspx?lang-nl" class="flagbutton">
     <img src="images/flagnl.png" alt="Bekijk deze website in het Nederlands"
     title="Bekijk deze website in het Nederlands"/>
     <img class="map" src="images/flaghovernl.png" alt=""/>

But that didn’t work. The page doesn’t switch languages to Dutch. And when I click on any link, say, about.aspx, the ?lang-nl disappears. So nothing appears in Dutch. I was told the asplinks do the javascript_dopostback? which is bad. Can somebody please tell me how to change my links so that they create a string at the end of the URL saying “?lang-nl” at the end, and it stays like that through their entire session? Any help would be sincerely appreciated!

PS — here is the code for my BasePage.vb:

    Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic
    Imports System
    Imports System.Data
    Imports System.Configuration
    Imports System.Globalization
    Imports System.Threading
    Imports System.Web
    Imports System.Web.Security
    Imports System.Web.UI
    Imports System.Web.UI.WebControls
    Imports System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts
    Imports System.Web.UI.HtmlControls

     Namespace Udev.MasterPageWithLocalization.Classes
      ''' <summary>
      ''' Custom base page used for all web forms.
      ''' </summary>
      Public Class BasePage
          Inherits Page
          Protected Overrides Sub InitializeCulture()
              'retrieve culture information from session
              Dim culture__1 As String =  
  Convert.ToString(Session([Global].SESSION_KEY_CULTURE))

              'check whether a culture is stored in the session
              If culture__1.Length > 0 Then
                  Culture = culture__1
              End If

              'set culture to current thread
              Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture =  
  CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture(culture__1)
              Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = New CultureInfo(culture__1)

              'call base class
              MyBase.InitializeCulture()
          End Sub
      End Class
  End Namespace

In my Global.vb, I have this:

  Namespace Udev.MasterPageWithLocalization.Classes
      ''' <summary>
      ''' Summary description for Global
      ''' </summary>
      Public Structure [Global]
          Public Const SESSION_KEY_CULTURE As String = "culture"
      End Structure
  End Namespace

In my Culture.vb, I have this:

  Namespace Udev.MasterPageWithLocalization.Classes
      ''' <summary>
      ''' This class provides ISO definitions for all cultures that are supported by 
    this application.
      ''' </summary>
      Public Structure Culture
          'German - Switzerland definition
          Public Const DE As String = "de"
          'English - Great Britain definition
          Public Const EN As String = "en"
      End Structure
  End Namespace

Answer 1

to read parameters from the url in your case is the (lang) in clients.aspx?lang=nl you can use:

Request.QueryString("lang")

this way you can use a simple if or a select case statements to determine which language the user is requesting. something like this:

Select Case Request.QueryString("lang")
    Case "en"
        ' switch the english
    Case "ar"
        ' switch to arabic
    Case "jp"
        ' switch to japan
    Case Else
        ' your default
End Select

now to keep the same language to the user as she navigates the site you can save it in a session using the code:

Session("lang") = "en"

and to read the session value use the code:

Dim lang as String = CType(Session.Item("lang"), String)

now when we combine both methods and making sure there will be no conflic:

' check if there is a lang value in the url
    If Request.QueryString("lang").Length > 0 Then
        Select Case Request.QueryString("lang")
            Case "en"
                Session("lang") = "en"
                ' switch the english languge
            Case "ar"
                Session("lang") = "ar"
                ' switch to arabic
            Case "jp"
                Session("lang") = "jp"
                ' sitch to japaneese
            Case Else
                Session("lang") = "en"
                ' your default language
        End Select

    Else
        ' check if there is a value in the session
        Select Case CType(Session.Item("lang"), String)
            Case "en"
                ' switch the english languge
            Case "ar"
                ' switch to arabic
            Case "jp"
                ' sitch to japaneese
            Case Else
                ' your default language
        End Select
    End If