Localizing content

For individual text strings displayed on the site (which are not stored within page fields), we recommend using multilingual resource strings. You can create and edit the strings in the Localization application of the Xperience administration interface.

To retrieve localized strings in the MVC application, add a using statement for the CMS.Helpersnamespace, and use the ResHelper class:

@using CMS.Helpers;
...
@{
    ViewBag.Title = ResHelper.GetString("SiteName.OurProducts");
}

<h2>@ResHelper.GetString("SiteName.OurProducts")</h2>

The default approach to validating the data model of MVC applications is to decorate the model and its properties with attributes from the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace. You use the attributes to define common validation patterns, such as range checking, string length and required fields.

The Kentico.Xperience.AspNet.Mvc5 integration package provides a feature that allows you to use localized Xperience resource strings as error messages in data annotation attributes. The strings are localized based on the current culture context of the current visitor. The Kentico.Xperience.LanguagePack.English integration package (installed with the Kentico.Xperience.AspNet.Mvc5 integration package) contains a .resx filewith the resource strings used in the English localization of Xperience. Aside from that, you can also use the standard resource strings stored in the database.

The feature supports localization of the following data annotation attributes:

• Display
• DisplayName
• DataType
• MaxLength
• MinLength
• Range
• RegularExpression
• Required
• StringLength

Enabling data annotation localization

To enable localization of data annotations in your MVC application:

1. Open your MVC project in Visual Studio.

2. Enable the localization feature by calling the UseDataAnnotationsLocalization() method of the ApplicationBuilder instance.

   • Enable the feature at the start of your application’s life cycle, for example in the Application_Start method of your project’s Global.asax file.

     MVC projects created by the installer contain the ApplicationConfig class, whose RegisterFeatures method is called in the Application_Start method by default. You can use this class to encapsulate all of your ApplicationBuilder code (enabling and configuring of Xperience MVC features).

     Copy

     using Kentico.Web.Mvc;
     
     ...
     
     protected void Application_Start()
     {
         ...
     
         // Gets the ApplicationBuilder instance
         // Allows you to enable and configure selected Xperience MVC integration features
         ApplicationBuilder builder = ApplicationBuilder.Current;
     
         // Enables the data annotation localization feature
         builder.UseDataAnnotationsLocalization();
     
         ...
     }

If the feature is enabled, validation results and display names of model properties are localized using Xperience localization services.

public class MessageModel
{
...
     [Required(ErrorMessage = "General.RequiresMessage")]
     [Display(Name = "General.Message")]
     [DataType(DataType.MultilineText)]
     [MaxLength(500, ErrorMessage = "General.MaxlengthExceeded")]
     public string MessageText
     {
         get;
         set;
     }
...
}