Locale-Dependent Resources

Overview

Many resources depend on the Locale and, sometimes, the browser. For example, you might need to use a larger font for Chinese characters to have better readability. ZK provides a way to load locale and browser-dependent resources including JavaScript, CSS, and images.

Specifying Locale- and browser-dependent URL

ZK can handle this for you automatically by specifying a URL with asterisk *. The algorithm is as follows.

One "*" for Locale Code

If you specify only one * in a URL, such as /my*.css, then * will be replaced with a locale code depending on the current locale that ZK detects. For example:

• URI: /my*.css
• User's preferences (current locale): de_DE

Then ZK looks for files in the order below one-by-one in your web site until any of them is found:

1. /my_de_DE.css
2. /my_de.css
3. /my.css

Two "*" for Locale and Browser Code

Such as "/my*/lang*.css", then the first "*" will be replaced with a browser code as follows:

• ie for Internet Explorer
• saf for Chrome, Safari
• moz for firefox and other browsers.

Moreover, the last asterisk will be replaced with a proper Locale as described in the previous rule. In summary, the last asterisk represents the Locale, while the first asterisk represents the browser type.

For example:

zul

<style src="/i18n/css-*/mycss*.css" />

The result in an HTML with Chrome:

<link ... href="/i18n/css-saf/mycss.css" ...>

Note

The last asterisk that represents the Locale must be placed right before the first dot ("."), or at the end if no dot at all. Furthermore, no following slash (/) is allowed, i.e., it must be part of the filename, rather than a directory. If the last asterisk doesn't fulfill this constraint, it will be eliminated (not ignored).

For example, "/my/lang.css*" is equivalent to "/my/lang.css".

In other words, you can consider it as neutral to the Locale.

Tip: We can apply this rule to specify a URI depending on the browser type, but not depending on the Locale. For example, "/my/lang*.css*" will be replaced with "/my/langie.css" if Internet Explorer is the current user's browser.

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Example

In the following example, we assume the preferred Locale is de_DE and the browser is Internet Explorer.

URI	Resources that are searched
/css/norm*.css	/norm_de_DE.css /norm_de.css /norm.css
/css-*/norm*.css	/css-ie/norm_de_DE.css /css-ie/norm_de.css /css-ie/norm.css
/img*/pic*/lang*.png	/imgie/pic*/lang_de_DE.png /imgie/pic*/lang_de.png /imgie/pic*/lang.png
/img*/lang.gif	/img/lang.gif
/img/lang*.gif*	/img/langie.gif
/img*/lang*.gif*	/imgie/lang*.gif

Locating Locale- and browser-dependent resources in Java

In addition to ZUML, you could handle browser- and Locale-dependent resource in Java. Here are a list of methods that you could use.

• The encodeURL, forward, and include methods in Execution for encoding URL, forwarding to another page and including a page. In most cases, these methods are all you need.
• The locate, forward, and include method in Servlets for locating Web resouces. You rarely need them when developing ZK applications, but useful for writing a servlet, portlet or filter.
• The encodeURL method in Encodes for encoding URL. You rarely need them when developing ZK applications, but useful for writing a Servlet, Portlet or Filter.

• The locate method in Locators for locating class resources.

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Version History

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