Hi Garrett,

I will try to help you come up with my suggestion.
If I understand your question right you're looking for a solution where you do not have to write choose construction each time you translate something.

<xsl:variable name="translate">
    <xsl:choose>
            <xsl:when test="normalize-space(umbraco.library:GetDictionaryItem(@nodeName))">
                    <xsl:value-of select="umbraco.library:GetDictionaryItem(@nodeName)"/>
            </xsl:when>
            <xsl:otherwise>
                    <xsl:value-of select="@nodeName"/>
            </xsl:otherwise>
    </xsl:choose>
</xsl:variable>

And you can print it this way, if I remember correctly

<xsl:copy-of select=$translate />

Hope my answer can help you, if I understand correctly
/Dennis

Hi Garrett,

I wrote an article on using Dictionary Items in XSLT - the way you do this (using @nodeName as the key) is a perfect fit for the "bonus" at the end of the article - using that, you'd be able to do this with a single line:

<xsl:apply-templates select="@nodeName" mode="label" />

Here's the condensed version of what you need from (that article):

<!-- Grab each section of labels -->
<xsl:variable name="frontpage-labels" select="umbraco.library:GetDictionaryItems('FrontPage')/DictionaryItems/DictionaryItem" />
<xsl:variable name="search-labels" select="umbraco.library:GetDictionaryItems('Search')/DictionaryItems/DictionaryItem" />
<xsl:variable name="product-labels" select="umbraco.library:GetDictionaryItems('Products')/DictionaryItems/DictionaryItem" />

<!-- Join them all for easy access -->
<xsl:variable name="labels" select="$frontpage-labels | $search-labels | $product-labels" />

<!--
    Take the label key from the element's name;
    If no DictionaryItem defined for this, wrap the element's name in hash-signs,
    to signal a missing translation to the frontend.
-->
<xsl:template match="* | @*" mode="label">
    <xsl:value-of select="$labels[@key = name(current())]" />
    <xsl:if test="not($labels[@key = name(current())])">
        <xsl:value-of select="concat('#', name(), '#')" />
    </xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

/Chriztian 

Thank you so much for your responses, guys.  Honestly, though, these solutions just seem like MORE code to me, no?  I mean, this is happening on many, many pages.  Is this meant to be an xsl:include, I guess?

Hi Garrett,

Yes - it's an include file that enables you to use that one single apply-templates line wherever you need a translated label output.

This way, you'll even be able to swap an entirely different translation mechanism in, because you're not hard-wired to the Umbraco Dictionary any longer (code-wise where you need the labels).

Anyway, I guess you _could_ do these two lines everywhere, if you don't feel like trying the include solution:

<xsl:variable name="label" select="umbraco.library:GetDictionaryItem(@nodeName)" />
<xsl:value-of select="(@nodeName[not(normalize-space($label))] | $label)[1]" />

/Chriztian 

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