PHP 5.3 has recently been released and one of the new features in core is the
internationalization extension. It allows you to support a
multitude of languages and local formats much easier than before,
without having to learn all the tiny the details of local formats
and rules.

As multi-lingual web sites become more and more important, I
would like to show two possible ways how to translate static text snippets in
your application with Zend Framework. Zend Framework provides us with several
packages like Zend_Locale and Zend_Translate to make developer’s life easier –
but how to put these components together?

PEAR’s Translation2 package provides a sophisticated framework for adding multi-language support to a Web application. This article takes a close look at the special features of this package, with examples of using it with both MySQL and XML data sources.

Gabi Solomon has put together a brief tutorial discussing how to use the language component in Zend Framework. His approach makes use of a controller plugin that allows easy generation of language-specific URLs. He says: “We need to make the url to allow us to change the language. And to do that i added a new rule in the bootstrap file [...] This rule will produce urls with the language in the url”. If handling multiple languages in your ZF application is keeping you up at night, Gabi’s post might help you some up with some new ideas. Take a look!

p. What I have made sound like a bad SciFi special is actually a very good article by Andrei Zmievski on Unicode and I18N in PHP 6.

p. Want more? Click [ more ]!

p. Internationalization and Localization are concepts that all web sites and applications will have to deal with at some point. Why not design it form the start? Most people just don’t think about it but in an increasingly global society, you need to. The earlier you design for it, the easier it is to do.

Cal Evans takes another romp through the Zend Framework mailing list rounding up the events of the past week.

bq. Boy-howdy what a week in Frameworkland. So many things to talk about that I can’t even begin to list them all in this teaser. I guess you’ll have to read the article to get the details.

p. Heidily Ho campers! It’s that time again. Yep, the old inbox is full so I know it’s time to do a framework mailing list roundup. So roll yer jeans up to yer knees and wade on in, you’ll get used to the smell after a while.

p. Localization is becoming more and more important for web designers and developers. It’s coming to a web site near you soon and you need to know how to do it and do it fast. And it isn’t only about swapping strings that you understand with ones you don’t, it is about doing it quickly and smoothly to give your site a global image.