How to render templates dynamically for a static user choice - django

Question

I don't know how to put this question as a title. But my question is I have 2 templates for each view in my django project templates folder. One template for english language and another for spanish language. My templates structure is
Project
|
app
|
templates
|
app
|
home_en.html
home_es.html
about_en.html
about_es.html
I need to render the templates according to the user choice of language. I have the project now fully in english running. As a start I only have the templates converted to spanish and ready to render. I am sorry this is a vague question but some directions to this problem would help.
My main urls are
urlpatterns = [
url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls),
url(r'^en/', include('app.urls')),
url(r'^es/', include('app.urls')),
]
my app urlpatterns are
urlpatterns = [
url(r'^about$', views.about, name='about'),
url(r'.*', views.home, name='home'), ]
I also tried checking the request url with /en/ or /es/ and then render according to it in each views like below.
def home(request):
if request.path == '/en/':
return render(request, 'app/home_en.html', {'title':'HOME'})
else:
return render(request, 'app/home_es.html', {'title':'HOME'})
def about(request):
if request.path == '/en/about':
return render(request, 'app/about_en.html', {'title':'ABOUT'})
else:
return render(request, 'app/about_es.html', {'title':'ABOUT'})
This works fine when I explicitly give url request as /en/ or /es/. How could i set it on the url based on the users selection of language ?
If I explicitly make request to http://127.0.0.1/es/about, my about page is shown in spanish but when I switch to home from there, it goes back to English home page. I want the url to stay as /es/ as the start even if I change the url. Now it changes to english since it is upper level in pattern

Answer 1

A very simple solution is to use a single pattern with a named group:
url(r'^(?P<language>en|es)/', include('app.urls'))
Your views must then accept the language parameter:
def home(request, language):
# language is either "es" or "en".
return render(request, 'app/home_{}.html'.format(language), {'title': 'HOME'})
You may also consider Django's localization and avoid duplicating the views.

Answer 2

Please read Django translation docs. here: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/i18n/translation/#module-django.conf.urls.i18n
See the part: Language prefix in URL patterns
in your urls.py:
from django.conf.urls.i18n import i18n_patterns
urlpatterns += i18n_patterns (
url(r'^about$', views.about, name='about'),
url(r'.*', views.home, name='home'),
)
This will automatically prefix you urls with language codes.
in the views.py you can get language code fomr request.LANGUAGE_CODE like this: from request.LANGUAGE_CODE == 'en'
To choose language put in your html templates:
{% load i18n %}
<form action="{% url 'set_language' %}" method="POST">{% csrf_token %}
<select name="language" id="language">
<option value="en">en</option>
<option value="ru">ru</option>
<option value="az">az</option>
</select>
<button type="submit">send</button>
</form>
or
{% load i18n %}
<form action="{% url 'set_language' %}" method="post">{% csrf_token %}
<input name="next" type="hidden" value="{{ redirect_to }}" />
<select name="language">
{% get_current_language as LANGUAGE_CODE %}
{% get_available_languages as LANGUAGES %}
{% get_language_info_list for LANGUAGES as languages %}
{% for language in languages %}
<option value="{{ language.code }}"{% if language.code == LANGUAGE_CODE %} selected="selected"{% endif %}>
{{ language.name_local }} ({{ language.code }})
</option>
{% endfor %}
</select>
<input type="submit" value="Go" />
</form>