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May i know what HTML codes should be use to ask browser install language packs in the language is not install on the browser? Is this only for IE? how about other browsers?

cometta
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  • Possible duplicate of [JavaScript for detecting browser language preference](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1043339/javascript-for-detecting-browser-language-preference). – rekire Jun 06 '12 at 17:42
  • nope. it wasn't. i not try to detect browser language. let say my website surfing chinese language. but user using internet explorer and do not have the language pack. how to do the prompt user install language pack? – cometta Jun 06 '12 at 17:53
  • Sorry but isn't that just a problem of the IE6 in the old Windows 98 days? – rekire Jun 06 '12 at 17:54
  • nope. not just ie6. ie7 and ie8 wont display the language is language pack not install. – cometta Jun 06 '12 at 18:00

2 Answers2

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There is no such code. What is needed for displaying, say, a web page in Chinese, is basically a font, or set of fonts, containing Chinese characters. Such fonts might be bundled in “language packs”, though modern systems are normally shipped with several fonts that support a large number of Chinese characters.

I think you need to describe the problem you’ve observed, rather than an assumed solution. Posting a sample URL generally helps.

Jukka K. Korpela
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  • example when visiting http://news.baidu.com/ , if my internet explorer do not have language pack. it will prompt for installation. how to do similar for my website? – cometta Jun 07 '12 at 14:03
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    @Cometta, it’s probably just IE itself noticing that the page contains characters for which it lacks fonts. I’ve see such things happen over a decade ago, but it might happen these days too, if Windows has been installed in some reduced configuration. So it happens when needed, with no special codes on the page. What is the actual problem you’re facing? A page that does not render properly? Which page? – Jukka K. Korpela Jun 07 '12 at 14:20
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I guess you want to make sure your audience can read your website properly.

It is not a good practice to force user to install or config a lot before he can use your app/site. Rather than that, you should plan and design it well.

You may find great solution in Google Web Font: https://developers.google.com/webfonts/

Example:

@font-face {
    font-family: 'Tangerine';
    font-style: normal;
    font-weight: normal;
    src: local('Tangerine'), url('http://themes.googleusercontent.com/font?kit=_jMq7r9ahcBZZjpP8hftNA') format('truetype');
}

*note: you can set the priority in CSS, so users can use existing fonts in their computer, for example in CSS:

Verdana, "Microsoft JhengHei", "微軟正黑體", "Microsoft YaHei", "微软雅黑", Tangerine, sans-serif, serif

Browser will download the font (quietly), only if need.

However, I would doubt that user will understand the contents you provided, if s/he doesn't install the language pack or fonts. Rather, I would monitor the traffic source (e.g. Google Analytics) and build for specify market segment.

Please, give up any Active-X and similar stuff, and stick with modern web technology. Unicode, web fonts, CSS are your friends.

Edditoria
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