localization - Set Culture in an ASP.Net MVC app

Question

What is the best place to set the Culture/UI Culture in an ASP.net MVC app

Currently I have a CultureController class which looks like this:

public class CultureController : Controller
{
    public ActionResult SetSpanishCulture()
    {
        HttpContext.Session["culture"] = "es-ES";
        return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home");
    }

    public ActionResult SetFrenchCulture()
    {
        HttpContext.Session["culture"] = "fr-FR";
        return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home");
    }
}

and a hyperlink for each language on the homepage with a link such as this:

<li><%= Html.ActionLink("French", "SetFrenchCulture", "Culture")%></li>
<li><%= Html.ActionLink("Spanish", "SetSpanishCulture", "Culture")%></li>

which works fine but I am thinking there is a more appropriate way to do this.

I am reading the Culture using the following ActionFilter http://www.iansuttle.com/blog/post/ASPNET-MVC-Action-Filter-for-Localized-Sites.aspx. I am a bit of an MVC noob so am not confident I am setting this in the correct place. I don't want to do it at the web.config level, it has to be based on a user's choice. I also don't want to check their http-headers to get the culture from their browser settings.

Edit:

Just to be clear - I am not trying to decide whether to use session or not. I am happy with that bit. What I am trying to work out is if it is best to do this in a Culture controller that has an action method for each Culture to be set, or is there is a better place in the MVC pipeline to do this?

Answer 1

I'm using this localization method and added a route parameter that sets the culture and language whenever a user visits example.com/xx-xx/

Example:

routes.MapRoute("DefaultLocalized",
            "{language}-{culture}/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            new
            {
                controller = "Home",
                action = "Index",
                id = "",
                language = "nl",
                culture = "NL"
            });

I have a filter that does the actual culture/language setting:

using System.Globalization;
using System.Threading;
using System.Web.Mvc;

public class InternationalizationAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute {

    public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext) {

        string language = (string)filterContext.RouteData.Values["language"] ?? "nl";
        string culture = (string)filterContext.RouteData.Values["culture"] ?? "NL";

        Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(string.Format("{0}-{1}", language, culture));
        Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(string.Format("{0}-{1}", language, culture));

    }
}

To activate the Internationalization attribute, simply add it to your class:

[Internationalization]
public class HomeController : Controller {
...

Now whenever a visitor goes to http://example.com/de-DE/Home/Index the German site is displayed.

I hope this answers points you in the right direction.

I also made a small MVC 5 example project which you can find here

Just go to http://{yourhost}:{port}/en-us/home/index to see the current date in English (US), or change it to http://{yourhost}:{port}/de-de/home/index for German etcetera.