Language fallback for media library item in sitecore

Question

I have a number of PDFs in English language. I have web pages in English and German lang.

If in a German Page I want to display PDF of English lang, it is not possible as that German version PDF is not available, so I tried to do fallback for media library item, even then no help.

So can someone please tell me any alternative for this.

NOTE: I don't want to upload english document in German version, as there are other languages available and customers cannot upload those many times in all lang.

I need to upload a document in Only English but display in all other Languages irrespective of that document is there in that lang or not.

It's ok even if I need to make changes through code.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

There are a couple of ways to do this. You can do it in the code for your rendering, or you can use the language fallback module from the Sitecore marketplace.

To do it in code you would need to create a new MediaProvider. Create a class that inherits from Sitecore.Resources.Media.MediaProvider and override the protected virtual MediaData GetMediaData(MediaUri mediaUri) method.

This method gets the sitecore item for the context language or the language in the Uri. So you can implement the fall back here:

public class MediaProviderWithFallback : Sitecore.Resources.Media.MediaProvider
{
    protected override Sitecore.Resources.Media.MediaData GetMediaData(Sitecore.Resources.Media.MediaUri mediaUri)
    {
        Assert.ArgumentNotNull((object)mediaUri, "mediaUri");
        Database database = mediaUri.Database;
        if (database == null)
        {
            return null;
        }
        string mediaPath = mediaUri.MediaPath;
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(mediaPath))
        {
            return null;
        }
        Language language = mediaUri.Language;
        if (language == null)
        {
            language = Context.Language;
        }
        Sitecore.Data.Version version = mediaUri.Version;
        if (version == null)
        {
            version = Sitecore.Data.Version.Latest;
        }
        Sitecore.Data.Items.Item mediaItem = database.GetItem(mediaPath, language, version);
        if (mediaItem == null)
        {
            return (MediaData)null;
        }
        // Check for language fallback
        if (mediaItem.Versions.Count == 0)
        {
            // Workout your language fallback here from config or sitecore settings etc...
            language = Language.Parse("en");
            // Try and get the media item in the fallback language
            mediaItem = database.GetItem(mediaPath, language, version);
            if (mediaItem == null)
            {
                return null;
            }
        }
        return MediaManager.Config.ConstructMediaDataInstance(mediaItem);
    }
}

Please note - this is untested code. You should store your fallback in config or modify the language template in sitecore.

Once you have that class you will need to update your web.config to use your provider over Sitecores. So find this section in the web.config and change the type to be your class and assembley:

    <!-- MEDIA PATH -->
<mediaPath defaultProvider="default">
  <providers>
    <clear />
    <add name="default" type="Sitecore.Resources.Media.MediaPathProvider, Sitecore.Kernel" />
  </providers>
</mediaPath>