html - change language using element.lang

javascript html lang
Shay Stibelman picture Shay Stibelman · Nov 28, 2012 · Viewed 38.3k times · Source

First question on stack, so hurray to me! I'm trying to develop a new way (apparently, since I've seen no solution to this online, perhaps cos it's not possible) to change the language of HTML written elements using JS and the lang property.

Basically, I have created multiple tags with the lang property in each of them, so that giving the certain lang a display value of -none-, hides it, and a value of -inherit- to show it. In that way, using the line:

a:lang(en),p:lang(en) { display : none }
a:lang(it),p:lang(it) { display : inherit }

I can see one language at a time. And that works!

Now, I have created an 

<a href="" lang="en" id="en"> word </a>

tag around the english text, and the same with any other language with their own lang property. I have tried to use:

$("#en").click(function(){
           $('a:lang(en)').css('display', 'inherit');
           $('a:lang(it)').css('display', 'none');
           };

Which doesn't seem to work.

Any ideas?

Thanks a bunch, Shay

Answer

xiaoyi picture xiaoyi · Nov 28, 2012

When load your page come with a <body class="it">, and all the :lang(en) tags will be hidden.

body.en :lang(it) {
  display: none;
}
body.it :lang(en) {
  display: none;
}

And when you need to change the language, simply change the className of <body>.

$("#en").click(function(){
  document.body.className = 'en';
};

Which is more elegant, and way faster.

demo: http://jsfiddle.net/Gw4eQ/

Use :not selector to make it work with more languages. demo

body:not(.en) :lang(en), 
body:not(.it) :lang(it), 
body:not(.fr) :lang(fr) { 
    display: none; 
}

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