Preparing a web site for international usage

Question

I am preparing to develop a web application that will (hopefully) be used by an audience with many different native languages.

What should I do to prepare my software project to have the user interface be almost entirely internationalized?

Are there any software stacks that make this easier?

Answer 1

There are some resources you might want to see:

• http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/i18n/
• http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/i18n/internationalization/
• http://www.djangobook.com/en/1.0/chapter18/

Python's gettext and locale module might also be useful.

Answer 2

One big change in your project: you need to build in time to localize your strings. Depending on your schedules, you may have to rearrange work so that all the string-changing work is at the front so that you have time to get the translations done before launching.

Or, alternately, you have to build in a buffer at the end to account for it.