WAMs support the development of Web applications executing in multiple languages from a single RDMLX WAM code base. WEBROUTINE and weblet XSL stylesheets are language sensitive.
It is possible to save and deploy separate distinct stylesheet for distinct languages. For example, you can create different presentation pages and weblets for English and Chinese languages.
How you will approach the task of developing and maintaining WAMs for multiple languages depends on your application.
If your web application will have the same appearance for all languages (i.e. same menus and same page layout for the respective webroutines) the simplest way to implement a multilingual application is to supply all text values as Multilingual Variables (*MTXT), which can be used for the appropriate captions in the weblet properties. This approach simplifies the management and distribution of your application, as only a single set of XSL source exists for each webroutine and layout.
If your web application requires a different interface for each webroutine based on the language, then you will need to create appropriate webroutine and layout XSL to support each language. This obviously is the less ideal approach as you will have more objects to maintain.
If a language specific page does not exist at execution time, a partition default page is used for presentation output. So while it is possible to have different pages for different languages, it is also possible to have a single page, which is presented for multiple languages.
Field captions and list headings are language dependent and will be presented according to the requested language. Multiligual variables are supported and can be referenced in the WEBROUTINE XSL. Where weblets allow you to specify a caption, you can specify Multilingual variable rather than specifying language dependent literal text. Weblets will display the text according to the language the WAM is being executed for.
Important:
1. The values of multilingual text variables referenced in webroutine and weblet XSL are resolved when the WAM or weblet is saved.
2. If you deploy a WAM or weblet, the values from the source system are taken in the deployment package.
At runtime, a language can be requested by passing a language keyword in the URL 'lang' parameter. For example the following URL requests an English language page:
http://localhost/cgi-bin/lansaweb?srve=LEWAM01_SearchQuery&part=DEM&lang=ENG
For more details, refer to the LANSA Multilingual Application Design Guide.
