webgen users - Mar 2009 - Some questions about webgen with a focus on bilingualism

Hi,

I''m new to webgen, in fact I have only installed it and not generated
a site yet. I''m curious about webgen and have some questions which
might affect if I''m able to use it or not. So that''s why
I''m asking
now. Please excuse me if I missed some information on the web site, I
mostly read enough to install it and get exited over the minimalist
philosphy! ;-)

As I am from Sweden I''ll create a web site which is written in both
Swedish and English. Some posts will be in both languages while others
will be in only one of them.

I want to have a static web site but add a dynamic aspect using
JavaScript, if it''s possible:

I would like the users who has Swedish set as their preferred language
in their browsers to only see the Swedish version of posts written in
both languages. They will also see posts written in English only. The
users who has English as their preferred language would only see
English posts and not any posts in Swedish.

If a user chooses Swedish and/or English as an active decision this
decision will override the users set browser language. I would store
the decision in a cookie so that it''s remembered (as far as the user
lets the cookie live) next time they visit.

What do you think? Does it sound possible?

Also is webgen able to generate RSS-feeds according to {a : A post in
Swedish,English but only Swedish if it exists}, {English}?

And lastly, is webgen suitable to use for a blog? I think there is an
extension to enable comments using http://disqus.com .

If some of the above is features which doesn''t exist in webgen, do you
think it''s possible for me to add them by writing extensions?
I''ve
never used Ruby but I do know how to write software.

Best regards, Kent

> I want to have a static web site but add a dynamic aspect using
> JavaScript, if it''s possible:
> 
> I would like the users who has Swedish set as their preferred language
> in their browsers to only see the Swedish version of posts written in
> both languages. They will also see posts written in English only. The
> users who has English as their preferred language would only see
> English posts and not any posts in Swedish.
> 
> If a user chooses Swedish and/or English as an active decision this
> decision will override the users set browser language. I would store
> the decision in a cookie so that it''s remembered (as far as the
user
> lets the cookie live) next time they visit.
> 
> What do you think? Does it sound possible?
It sounds certainly possible but I don''t know how to do this with
JavaScript. You could use Apache''s functionality to correctly select
the language base on the filename (see Apache language negotiation and
the AddLanguage directive).
 
> Also is webgen able to generate RSS-feeds according to {a : A post in
> Swedish,English but only Swedish if it exists}, {English}?
It is theoretically possible and everything''s there, but it is not
implemented in this way currently. There has been another thread with
a similar request and I will look into this.
 
> And lastly, is webgen suitable to use for a blog? I think there is an
> extension to enable comments using http://disqus.com .
webgen is certainly suitable for a static blog. However, it currently
lacks out-of-the-box suppport for many things a blog needs (for
example, tags). Full blog functionality will be supported in a future
release.
> If some of the above is features which doesn''t exist in webgen, do
you
> think it''s possible for me to add them by writing extensions?
I''ve
> never used Ruby but I do know how to write software.
It is not hard to write extensions to webgen. Just read through the API
documentation. I have included examples for all the major extensions
like source handlers and tags.

Best regards,
  Thomas