LocalizerX

An app to enforce a default language for the edX Platform regardless of browser language, while still allowing individual learners to change their language preference.

Overview

By default Django sites including the edX Platform use LocaleMiddleware to serve localized pages to the users based on their browser language. The browser language is advertised using the Accept-Language HTTP header.

For a huge number of users this is far from correct, since it's not uncommon for users to use an English browser interface yet expect your site to be Arabic. This is especially true for Arabic sites. Some sites are offered in a single, other than English, language only.

This package helps to enforce settings.LANGUAGE_CODE (or site_configuration provided value) as the site's default language for the edX Platform. This package does allow learners to change the language. This package also maintains backward compatibility with API endpoints and passes the Accept-Language header as-is.

How to Install

Disclaimer

If you're looking to have a single language (e.g. French), for the edX Platform and a single language only i.e no English at all, even in /admin, probably this app is not required. However, often it is required to have a default language (e.g. Arabic) for the site, while still being able to default to English or another language when needed.

The middleware that is available in this package has a rough relationship with edX's Dark Lang app. Luckily, if we configure the Dark Lang properly, both can play nicely. To configure Dark Lang properly you need to do either of:

• Configure Open edX dark_lang to include all the languages that you'd like to display, or
• Disable dark_lang app, through the edX Platform LMS Django Admin.

You can read more on the Dark Lang feature. But mostly it's a configuration model in the admin panel available under /admin/dark_lang/.

Next, install LocalizerX and configure it:

• $ pip install -e git+https://github.com/appsembler/LocalizerX.git#egg=localizerx
• Add localizerx to ADDL_INSTALLED_APPS in the lms.env.json (or your server-vars.yml)
• Set FEATURES['ENABLE_LOCALIZERX'] to true in the lms.env.json (or your server-vars.yml)
• Set LANGUAGE_CODE to ar
• Reload the server
• Open a new incognito window on http://localhost:8000/, you should see an Arabic interface
• Optional: Few deployments uses the Django Sites framework (aka Microsites). If your deployment uses this framework you can still configure a different language for a specific site: go to Sites Configuration /admin/site_configuration/siteconfiguration/, add a LANGUAGE_CODE key with the desired site-specific value to the site's configuration JSON. To enable or disable the feature on a specific site, define the variable ENABLE_LOCALIZERX in the site's configuration JSON.

Support Custom API Endpoints

To retain compatibility with the mobile applications, LocalizerX will avoid tampering the Accept-Language header of any URL with the following prefixes: - /api/ - /user_api/ - /notifier_api/

However, different apps can introduce different API endpoints that are not covered, when needed LocalizerX can be configured to filter different prefixes with the LOCALIZERX_API_URL_PREFIXES setting in the lms.env.json (or EDXAPP_ENV_EXTRA.LOCALIZERX_API_URL_PREFIXES in server-vars.yml).

Monkey Patching

This module monkey-patches the edX platform the following way:

• Add the DefaultLocaleMiddleware to MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES before any known locale-aware middleware.
• The middleware overrides the Accept-Language header with site_configuration.helpers.get_value('LANGUAGE_CODE') or settings.LANGUAGE_CODE when the former is not available.

How to Develop

This is mostly a standard Open edX django cookie cutter app. To start development or run the tests locally, first the environment must be prepared:

$ mkvirtualenv localizerx
$ make requirements
$ make quality
$ make test

To run the local development server:

$ python manage.py migrate
$ python manage.py runserver

License

The code in this repository is licensed under the MIT License unless otherwise noted.

Please see LICENSE.txt for details.

The original code was developed at Edraak and used to be licensed with AGPL 3.0. This repo has been re-licensed to MIT after Edraak's permission.

How To Contribute

Contributions are very welcome. We're happy to accept pull requests. TravisCI will check your code for you, and we should have a reviewer in a couple of days.

Reporting Security Issues

Please do not report security issues in public. Please email security@appsembler.org.