Stumble It!
StreetAdvisor Blog RSSHello again! Over the past 12 months we’ve been silently keeping an eye on the various browser language configurations our users have set up. What is a browser language configuration? It’s a setting a user defines in their browser preferences that reflects what their culture and language is.
This setting is used by websites to localize the content into a format users are comfortable with. This includes optimizing the display of diacritical marks (commonly known as accents) related to specific characters in different languages.
A while ago I started programming the UI to be ‘culture-aware’ – to adjust itself to the user’s language settings. It seemed to work in many scenarios but not all. Some location names (mainly from European countries) that feature diacritical marks were not displaying accurately. Finally, it’s now working properly. Below is a screen capture of a search for Barcelona, Spain that shows many diacritical marks.
The improvements we have added this week also have some other useful functions. StreetAdvisor now works well with localized punctuation conventions. For example, Spain and other European countries commonly use a comma instead of a period for decimal places: 1.23 is written as 1,23.
The mapping services StreetAdvisor relies on require the correct application of periods and commas in Lat / Long coordinates. Otherwise, geodata becomes meaningless strings of numbers.
These improvements are also used to display localized units of measurement in the site. If you have your browser set correctly, the default unit of measurement for StreetAdvisor.com in the US is miles, and the default unit of measurement for StreetAdvisor.com.au in Australia is kilometres.
Your browser does most of the work in establishing your langauge preferences, but to accurately see documents and websites configured for your location, and be able to enter data in your preferred format, you may also need to adjust your keyboard layout preferences in your operating system.
The StreetAdvisor team is continuing to improve our localized features and functions to make your street experience a happy one. We think in particular the many Spanish speakers in the US will find these improvements immediately helpful!
Justin Adler
Lead Developer
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