[SalesForce] Salesforce Sites: Translate picklist values

I am currently working on a public Salesforce Site that must be implemented in a couple different languages. I am correctly displaying my objects' custom labels, but I unfortunately cannot seem to get the translated picklist values.

I am using the toLabel() function in my SOQL queries, but since the Apex Controller executes in the Locale of the Guest Site User, this will simply return the picklist values in the default language.

Has anybody found a workaround for this problem? I am trying to avoid hard-coding values into my Apex classes for picklist translations.

Edit
Due to Toby's answer, I am updating my question to tell you that I know the language in which I have to load the picklist values because I am retrieving it as a page parameter. Therefore, to clarify, I need some way to access a specific language's translations based upon a predetermined language parameter.

Best Answer

I really don't think Salesforce is going to be able to do this for you. In order to auto-translate Salesforce would need something from the user to determine the language. In the event of a public site, the user record as you have determined is inaccurate/not useful and this is the only information I imagine Salesforce will be able to reliably use.

There's only two ways I can think to auto-translate the values and they both require information from the browser. One is to detect the user's location the other is to detect the user's language. I'd go straight to option 2 as it's likely more consistent (and less likely to raise security concerns. have you ever seen the "this website wants to know your location" warning in chrome?).

Detecting user's language

JavaScript translation options - This references the Google Translate API which allows you to translate without hardcoding values. The other options require hardcoding.

For the lazy people out there:

It's up to you to decide if you want to fight the fight but you could also argue that the site should not be public (requires registration) so that you have a user record for each person. Use the language issue as an example. Many stakeholder's/executives don't know Salesforce at a technical level making them easy to manipulate. Considering the fact that option 1 exists I'd avoid this

For the insane people out there:

If you want to get CRAZY you can try to dynamically set the public user's language or something but this will result in some really wacky behavior. You'd have to set it before every call to the database and that is still not guaranteed to work as a few calls could over lap resulting in users seeing the wrong language or a "unable to lock row" error. The latter you could catch in a try and (dear god don't do this) loop until it succeeds. If you have a low traffic site this might not be too crazy, but still... don't do it.

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] How to Automate Translation

Translations sound suspiciously close to Metadata API which means it's not accessible from Apex (at least not without some callout-like hacks). Can't you just use standard Translation Workbench? Export to Excel, let users translate, import back... sure beats crafting XML files.

Besides even if you had such possibility to modify translations from Apex - how do you plan to write a "metadata change sniffer" that'd "fire" every time a new picklist is added or existing one modified? Or that would detect the fact a new language was enabled in the system?

I believe "you're doing it wrong" ;) I think it makes more sense to leverage the fact Salesforce kept picklist name & value identical (so no way to configure system out of the box to have <select>...<option value="Y">Yes</option>...</select>). If you need this Yes/No somewhere else as Y/N - consider making a formula field?

EDIT

Translations metadata missing in Eclipse - check your package.xml. Mine contains (among others)

<types>
    <members>*</members>
    <name>CustomObjectTranslation</name>
</types>
<types>
    <members>*</members>
    <name>Translations</name>
</types>

("Translations" is for apps, custom labels etc) and my Opportunity-es.objectTranslation has correct data in it:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<CustomObjectTranslation xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
...
<fields>
    <help>Si es Indirecto, debe rellenar el campo de mayorista</help>
    <label>Directo / Indirecto</label>
    <name>Direct_Indirect__c</name>
    <picklistValues>
        <masterLabel>Direct</masterLabel>
        <translation>Directo</translation>
    </picklistValues>
    <picklistValues>
        <masterLabel>Indirect</masterLabel>
        <translation>Indirecto</translation>
    </picklistValues>
</fields>
...
<fields>
    <name>LeadSource</name>
    <picklistValues>
        <masterLabel>Advertisement</masterLabel>
        <translation><!-- Advertisement --></translation>
    </picklistValues>
    <picklistValues>
        <masterLabel>Customer Event</masterLabel>
        <translation><!-- Customer Event --></translation>
    </picklistValues>
...

[SalesForce] Visualforce Page Force.com Sites – Language Translation – How

You could use the language attribute of the VF page:

<apex:page language="es">
    <apex:outputText value="{!$Label.Foo}">

    <apex:pageBlock>
        <apex:pageBlockSection>
            <apex:outputField value="{!Account.BillingStreet}"/>
        </apex:pageBlockSection>
    </apex:pageBlock>
</apex:page>

The label Foo and the fieldlabel for the Billing Street are in spanish then. Of course you must provide a spanish translation for the custom label.

The language attribute does accept ISO country codes plus an optional locale like

en
en_US
de
de_DE

You may also refer to a variable in order to set the locale dynamically:

<apex:page language="{!lang}">

This should allow you to write a VF page only once and use the platform specific translation mechanisms to translate all texts and labels.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] How to Automate Translation

[SalesForce] Visualforce Page Force.com Sites – Language Translation – How

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