Implementing Google Translate with custom flag icons

@mogelbrod, I used your code above and it worked perfectly on Chrome, tried it on Firefox and Safari, did not work. The span.click event doesn't fire the event handler of google translate.

I came up with another method I just wanna share by using the google select instead the iframe-based plugin.

<!-- Use CSS to replace link text with flag icons -->
<ul class="translation-links">
  <li><a href="#" class="spanish" data-lang="Spanish">Spanish</a></li>
  <li><a href="#" class="german" data-lang="German">German</a></li>
</ul>

<!-- Code provided by Google -->
<div id="google_translate_element"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
  function googleTranslateElementInit() {
    new google.translate.TranslateElement({pageLanguage: 'en', autoDisplay: false}, 'google_translate_element'); //remove the layout
  }
</script>
<script src="//translate.google.com/translate_a/element.js?cb=googleTranslateElementInit" type="text/javascript"></script>


<script type="text/javascript">
    function triggerHtmlEvent(element, eventName) {
var event;
if(document.createEvent) {
    event = document.createEvent('HTMLEvents');
    event.initEvent(eventName, true, true);
    element.dispatchEvent(event);
} else {
    event = document.createEventObject();
    event.eventType = eventName;
    element.fireEvent('on' + event.eventType, event);
}
}
            <!-- Flag click handler -->
        $('.translation-links a').click(function(e) {
  e.preventDefault();
  var lang = $(this).data('lang');
  $('#google_translate_element select option').each(function(){
    if($(this).text().indexOf(lang) > -1) {
        $(this).parent().val($(this).val());
        var container = document.getElementById('google_translate_element');
        var select = container.getElementsByTagName('select')[0];
        triggerHtmlEvent(select, 'change');
    }
});
});

        </script>

Tested on: Chrome (win & Mac), Safari(Win & Mac), FireFox (win) and IE8

By the way, the issue of the span.click event I encountered on Firefox and Safari could be solved by using the triggerHtmlEvent function above, I haven't tried it though.

Had a lot of fun finding a solution for this question!

<!-- Use CSS to replace link text with flag icons -->
<ul class="translation-links">
  <li><a href="#" class="spanish" data-lang="Spanish">Spanish</a></li>
  <li><a href="#" class="german" data-lang="German">German</a></li>
</ul>

<!-- Code provided by Google -->
<div id="google_translate_element"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
  function googleTranslateElementInit() {
    new google.translate.TranslateElement({pageLanguage: 'en', layout: google.translate.TranslateElement.InlineLayout.SIMPLE, autoDisplay: false}, 'google_translate_element');
  }
</script>
<script src="//translate.google.com/translate_a/element.js?cb=googleTranslateElementInit" type="text/javascript"></script>

<!-- Flag click handler -->
<script type="text/javascript">
    $('.translation-links a').click(function() {
      var lang = $(this).data('lang');
      var $frame = $('.goog-te-menu-frame:first');
      if (!$frame.size()) {
        alert("Error: Could not find Google translate frame.");
        return false;
      }
      $frame.contents().find('.goog-te-menu2-item span.text:contains('+lang+')').get(0).click();
      return false;
    });
</script>

@mogelbrod code isn't always working so I hacked it a bit.

If user is logged in Google Account, Google will detect it's language and automatically translate language text so you won't be able to fire event on desired element because data-lang attribute won't be correct!

Users that aren't logged in Google Account and American / English users will have this.

And for example; Croatian users will have this.

In this case it's better to map language order. For example from above, that would be

0 - English

1 - French

2 - German

3 - Italian

HTML:

Note the data-placement property (you can change element order, but preserve placement as above).

<div class="translation-icons" style="visibility:hidden">
    <a href="#" class="eng" data-placement="0">eng icon</a>
    <a href="#" class="fra" data-placement="1">fra icon</a>
    <a href="#" class="ger" data-placement="2">ger icon</a>
    <a href="#" class="ita" data-placement="3">ita icon</a>
</div>

JS: I had to change find selector. Note that when user choses language, there's no more "Choose Language" element in #google_translate_element div so I had to handle that, too.

Also it's good not to show icons until all scripts (google translate) are loaded.

$(window).load(function () {

    $('.translation-icons').css('visibility', 'visible');

        $('.translation-icons a').click(function(e) {
            e.preventDefault();
            var placement = $(this).data('placement');
            var lang_num = $('.translation-icons a').length;
            var $frame = $('.goog-te-menu-frame:first');

            if (!$frame.size()) {
                alert("Error: Could not find Google translate frame.");
                return false;
            }

            var langs = $('.goog-te-menu-frame:first').contents().find('a span.text');

            if(langs.length != lang_num) placement = placement+1;

            langs.eq(placement).click();
            return false;
        });
});