Before diving into the implementation, it's crucial to understand some basic concepts related to localization and internationalization. Localization (L10n) involves translating an application into different languages and adapting certain aspects (such as date and time formats) to match the cultural and language preferences of users. Internationalization (i18n) is the process of preparing an application for translation, which includes separating textual content from code and preparing it for easy translation.

Step 1: Prepare Your Application

The first step is to prepare your application to support multiple languages. This typically involves creating a structure of folders and files that will contain language files. In Nette applications, language files are often stored in Neon or INI format. You can create a translations folder within your app directory, where each language will have its own file, such as messages.cs.neon for Czech and messages.en.neon for English.

Step 2: Configure Your Application

The next step is to configure your Nette application to use the language files you've prepared. This is usually done in the application's configuration file. You can use extensions like Kdyby/Translation, which simplifies working with localization in Nette. After installing this extension via Composer (composer require kdyby/translation), you can add configuration settings for localization, including the path to language files and the default language of the application, to your configuration file.

Step 3: Using Translations in Your Application

After configuring your application to use language files, you can start incorporating translations into your application. In Nette, you can do this using the {_ 'key'} macro in Latte templates, where 'key' corresponds to the key in the language file. For dynamic expressions, you can also use PHP code, such as $translator->translate('key'), where $translator is the translation service registered in the DI container.

Step 4: Language Switching

To allow users to switch languages in your application, you can add functionality that changes the language based on the user's selection and stores this preference, for example, in a session or cookies. This can be achieved by adding links or buttons to your template that call an action in your presenter to change the language.

Implementing multilingual support in Nette applications requires careful preparation and configuration, but thanks to the flexibility of the framework and available extensions like Kdyby/Translation, this process is facilitated. By following the steps outlined above, you can easily prepare your applications for international audiences and provide users with more convenient and accessible services.