use flags with choose language add-on

traveljunkie

well, title says it all really, instead of the dropdown menu for the add-on 'choose language 1.0', i would like to use little flags (like the polyglot plugin for wordpress), but sadly enough i have no idea how to do such a thing. maybe someone could point me in the right direction...
cheers

alnokta

Do we always have to replicate others' mistakes ? http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/flags.html

bjrn

I'm not sure I totally agree with that article, in fact, I think there are some really stupid bits in it. While I agree that a flag isn't the best way to denot a language, I find that it's quick and easy to scan a page for a little flag. I've seen websites using just text, where the language names aren't clearly separate from other menus, making it harder to find. Unless you have a graphically intensive page, a little flag is usually quite easy to spot. And that really is important. If you have a multi-lingual site, and expect people to read the site in a language other than the default a lot, you really should do something to allow people to switch quickly, and I find that in many cases, flag images help with that.

Of course, there are situations where the use of flags doesn't make sense, but to say that you are stupid if you use flags, that you insult the nation of which flag you have put on your site, and insult everyone outside that country but speaking the same language is just ... stupid, and insulting.

Of course, in an ideal world you'd work with language headers, to check what the browser has set as default and switch to that.

traveljunkie

do people always have to add their useless bit to everything? i would just like to have an answer. not interested in whether it's a mistake or not.

jimw

Just because somebody wants something, doesn't mean that he or she will get it. Discussion is always good. Explanations help us understand. And, in fact, just because you can do something, doesn't mean that you should.

traveljunkie

we're all being awefully philosophical today, aren't we?

WallPhone

While there are some valid points in that article, I believe flags are the best alternative.

Getting back to the subject, this should be a very easy change. Without looking at the source of the changer, I suspect it uses something like: <select> <option value="http://url">language-name</option> ... </select>

You just need get rid of the select tags and change those option tags to appear something like: <a href="http://url" title="language-name"><img src="flag.gif" alt="language-name"></a>

Max_B

I'm on the "no flag, an rather an AUTOMATIC language switching" side, as is my LanguageSelector extension.
I know, this is not the answer you were looking for...

traveljunkie

i find it ridiculous and actually funny as hell (maybe a little bit scary) that there are people out there, who think that putting a flag, which is not theirs, on a website to denote a language, which is theirs, is an insult to them. seriously, listen to some jack johnson, put your feet up, have a chilled beer and watch the sunset... max_b: i'd actually prefer your language extension, but i have vanilla integrated with wordpress and your extension doesn't work now anymore, so i reverted back to the choose-language extension. automatic selection is great, but i still want to have the choice if i want to read the stuff in english or german (in my case that is). and flags are just so much easier to spot than another couple words. wall: thanks for that, not really competent in php, but i'll try to put something together.