Building International Applications with .NET – Part 1

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
using System.Threading;
using System.Globalization;

/// <summary>
/// BasePage for the common funtionality in all 
/// the web pages of the site.
/// </summary>
public class BasePage: Page
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Default constructor
    /// </summary>
	public BasePage()
	{
		//
		// TODO: Add constructor logic here
		//
	}

    /// <summary>
    /// The name of the culture selection dropdown list in the common header. We need this name
    /// as we want to know the clintID of the language dropdown and we can't use ClientID or any other
    /// control property as the control (dropdown) itself is not initialized yet. So we use the "nested"
    /// dropdown name through which we will get the dropdown's value from the Request.Form[] collection.
    /// </summary>
    public const string LanguageDropDownID = "ctl00$cphHeader$Header1$ddlLanguage";

    /// <summary>
    /// The name of the PostBack event target field in a posted form.  You can use this to see which
    /// control triggered a PostBack:  Request.Form[PostBackEventTarget] .
    /// </summary>
    public const string PostBackEventTarget = "__EVENTTARGET";

    /// <summary>
    /// Overriding the InitializeCulture method to set the user selected
    /// option in the current thread. Note that this method is called much
    /// earlier in the Page lifecycle and we don't have access to any controls
    /// in this stage, so have to use Form collection.
    /// </summary>
    protected override void InitializeCulture()
    {
        ///<remarks>
        ///Check if PostBack occured. Cannot use IsPostBack in this method
        ///as this property is not set yet.
        ///</remarks>
        if (Request[PostBackEventTarget] != null)
        {
            ///<remarks>
            ///Get the id of the control which triggered the PB
            ///Then we need to match this ID with the DropDown's ID
            ///to check if the dropdown was clicked and not some other control.
            ///</remarks>
            string controlID = Request[PostBackEventTarget];

            if (controlID.Equals(LanguageDropDownID))
            {
                string selectedValue = Request.Form[Request[PostBackEventTarget]].ToString();

                switch (selectedValue)
                {
                    case "0": SetCulture("hi-IN", "hi-IN");
                        break;
                    case "1": SetCulture("en-US", "en-US");
                        break;
                    case "2": SetCulture("en-GB", "en-GB");
                        break;
                    case "3": SetCulture("fr-FR", "fr-FR");
                        break;
                    default: break;
                }
            }
        }
        base.InitializeCulture();
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Sets the current UICulture and CurrentCulture based on
    /// the arguments
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="name"></param>
    /// <param name="locale"></param>
    protected void SetCulture(string name, string locale)
    {
        Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo(name);
        Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo(locale);
    }
    
}