The Language SkinObject explained

Erik van Ballegoij posted on August 24, 2008 22:23

This blog is long overdue. In DotNetNuke 04.06.00 the language skinobject was beefed up to be much more versatile. Apart from just a dropdown menu, it can also display links to languages. Even though Lorraine blogged about the new appearance, there is much more to the skinobject than meets the eyes!

The skinobject supports 2 display modes: dropdown menu and template based repeater (you can even use both at the same time). Apart from that, there is a common header and a common footer available (both templatable).

All templates of the skinobject use the DNN core TokenReplace functionality as template engine. This means that you can control visible appearance of the language skin object to a great extent.

First, let us look at all attributes of the skinobject:

Attribute Name	Functionality	Allowed values	Default Value
CssClass	String attribute, used to style the language dropdown list	Any valid CSS Class name	[empty]
ShowMenu	Boolean attribute, used to either display or hide the dropdown menu	Tue, False	True
ShowLinks	Boolean attribute, used to either display or hide the language links repeater	True, False	False
CommonHeaderTemplate	String attribute for template to be used as common header	Any valid string	[empty]
HeaderTemplate	String attribute for template to be used as repeater header	Any valid string
ItemTemplate	String attribute for template to be used as repeater item	Any valid string
AlternateTemplate	String attribute for template to be used as alternate repeater item	Any valid string	[empty]
SeparatorTemplate	String attribute for template to be used as repeater separator item	Any valid string
FooterTemplate	String attribute for template to be used as repeater footer item	Any valid string	[empty]
CommonFooterTemplate	String attribute for template to be used as common footer	Any valid string	[empty]

In order to facilitate the display of cultures, a CulturePropertyAccess class was created, which is used to render the name of a culture based on the different display attributes of the .NET CultureInfo class. Inside the different template you can use the following CULTURE token properties to display the name of a culture:

[CULTURE:DISPLAYNAME]	Gets the culture name in the format " ()" in the language of the localized version of .NET Framework.
[CULTURE:ENGLISHNAME]	Gets the culture name in the format " ()" in English.
[CULTURE:LCID]	Gets the culture identifier for the current CultureInfo
[CULTURE:NAME]	Gets the culture name in the format "-".
[CULTURE:NATIVENAME]	Gets the culture name, consisting of the language, the country/region, and the optional script, that the culture is set to display.
[CULTURE:TWOLETTERISOCODE]	Gets the ISO 639-2 three-letter code for the language of the current CultureInfo
[CULTURE:THREELETTERISOCODE]	Gets the ISO 639-1 two-letter code for the language of the current CultureInfo

(Descriptions copied from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.globalization.cultureinfo_members.aspx)

By the way: the CULTURE token is available throughout DotNetNuke in every module that supports TokenReplace

The following tokens are also supported inside the Language skinobject template:

[URL]	This will generate the correct URL for the current page in a specific culture
[FLAGSRC]	The name of a flag image (.gif only) for a specific culture, in the format "-.gif".
[SELECTED]	Returns “True” if a specific culture is the current culture.
[LABEL]	Inserts the Label text from the resource file.
[I]	Returns the directory that holds the core country flag images (/images/Flags)
[P]	Returns the portal directory
[S]	Returns the directory of the current skin
[G]	Returns the global (host) skin folder

Some samples:

Display	Code (ascx)	Description
		Default configuration in default DotNetNuke skin.
		Displays only dropdownlist
		Displays dropdownlist and flag of currently selected language
		Displays text links for languages. Selected language has different classname