Django Internationalization with Geolocation - django

Question

From what I read in Django documentation, this is what LocaleMiddleware does:
LocaleMiddleware tries to determine the user’s language preference by following this algorithm:
First, it looks for the language prefix in the requested URL. This is
only performed when you are using the i18n_patterns function in your
root URLconf. See Internationalization: in URL patterns for more
information about the language prefix and how to internationalize URL
patterns.
Failing that, it looks for a django_language key in the current user’s
session.
Failing that, it looks for a cookie.
The name of the cookie used is set by the LANGUAGE_COOKIE_NAME
setting. (The default name is django_language.)
Failing that, it looks at the Accept-Language HTTP header. This header
is sent by your browser and tells the server which language(s) you
prefer, in order by priority. Django tries each language in the header
until it finds one with available translations.
Failing that, it uses the global LANGUAGE_CODE setting.
I want my django project to detect user country and use it in choosing default language?
How to do this:
I have two ideas in mind:
Write a new middleware which to execute before LocaleMiddleware and in this middleware if there is no cookie LANGUAGE_COOKIE_NAME to set it using django GeoLocation
Replace LocaleMiddleware and instead of looking for Accept-Language HTTP header to use django GeoLocation
What do you think?
Or may be there is another easier way?
Edit: I will have an option for changing language, the problem is only when you open the website (any page, not just front page) for the first time. I'm considering now to set django_language for the default website language /bg/ (if there is no such settings) and also use international urls /en/, /bg/. Also there have to be a language switch option. This way there will be no problem with search engines and I will not use geolocation at all.
Edit: Also there is this problem that here (in Bulgaria) most browsers headers are set to prefer English language which is not a good option :(

Answer 1

Actually it isn't a very good idea overall. You should rarely want to set a language for a client, that's why most sites use an optional language form. (flag buttons or possibly a dropdown select).
The LocaleMiddleware runs down a hierarchical path that most likely will pick the right translation (if available). A proper solution would be to hand your clients a form to set or switch their preference. You could populate the django_language session key if the form is processed.
Also crawlers will not scrape pages properly if forced to a language setting.

Answer 2

I found this, that is very usefull:
Middleware that will force django to use settings.LANGUAGE_CODE for default language and not use equest.META['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE']
class ForceDefaultLanguageMiddleware(object):
"""
Ignore Accept-Language HTTP headers
This will force the I18N machinery to always choose settings.LANGUAGE_CODE
as the default initial language, unless another one is set via sessions or cookies
Should be installed *before* any middleware that checks request.META['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'],
namely django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware
"""
def process_request(self, request):
if request.META.has_key('HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'):
del request.META['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE']
Source: https://gist.github.com/vstoykov/1366794