#338 Globalize3

If you don't have a lot of languages but just two or three or so, you could keep things simpler with multiple columns in the same table. We wrote Traco for that recently, inspired by an earlier plugin called translatable_columns.

What about tr8n ?
https://github.com/berk/tr8n

We fork this gem and rewrite to more flexible globalize3

No more need to write create_translation_table! in migrations.

Just write in AR model translates "title:string", "content:text" and call rake db:globalize:up.

It automatically synchronize translated columns with database (create/drop table or add/change/remove column).

Good stuff - I have the same question as this guy, regarding how to integrate ElasticSearch into a model that uses Globalize3.

Is it also possible to use realiable validations?

Thanks so much for this episode :), great stuff

Hello guys and Ryan,

I was having a great challenge with Globalize3 regarding translating models on a website. Globalize3 relies on models created by a base locale set by I18n.locale or config.i18n.default_locale. Now lets have this situation when video above has three locales, WK, DE and EN (EN set as default). I have my fallback set to the en locale.

When I enter articles in english all goes fine, all the entries are now English for all locales. But for example when i try to make an article in WK language only, Globalize wont fall back to that language when the user browses the English or German language. For example when I view the page in German it still falls back to the English locale which is not set. Any suggestions how to fall back to the locale in which the Model is originally created when other locales are not set?

So my goal was; when a Article is created in a locale (WK) other then the default_locale (EN), the application needs to show that locale (WK) in the article as fallback locale. Even when i enter a translation for the default locale (EN) and the user requests the page in German (DE) the article is shown in the (WK) locale.

What i did is create an base_locale attribute to the Article model and tried overriding the read_attributes globalize uses. Here is some code

class Language < ActiveRecord::Base
attr_accessible :locale, :name
end


class Article < ActiveRecord::Base 

translates :title, :description, :fallbacks_for_empty_translations => true
attr_accessible :title, :description :base_locale_sym
belongs_to :base_locale, :class_name => "Language", :foreign_key => "base_locale_id"
before_save :set_base_locale_cache
def set_base_locale_cache
    if self.base_locale_id_changed?
      unless self.base_locale.blank?
        #sets the base locale cache for the created Article
        #i dont want to query Article.base_locale each time...
        self.base_locale_sym = Language.find(self.base_locale_id).locale
      else
        self.base_locale_sym = ""
      end
    end
  end

def read_attribute(name, options = {})
    #when the translated_locales does not include the i18n.locale try to show the model in the locale in which the Article was first created.
    unless self.translated_locales.include? I18n.locale.to_sym
      #merge the options hash
      options.merge(:locale => self.base_locale_sym)
    end
    super(name,options)
  end

end

This idea worked quite fine, but i had really issues with updating and generating models. Maybe someone got a better idea?

I couldn't figure out this puzzle so i stopped it 3 months ago. Since this railscast is about globalize, I thought maybe we can solve it..

It should probably be noted that at the moment there is a small glitch (regarding accessors / mass assignment) that prevents Globalize3 from working fully and seamlessly with rails 3.2.3. It will be fixed very soon, though!

Awesome railscast, as always. Does have any information on how to seed the translation table?

Does anyone know of a way to add translations on the fly as in say a user with admin rights creating a new locale?

Blog::Application.routes.draw do
  scope ':locale', locale: /#{I18n.available_locales.join("|")}/ do
    resources :articles
    root to: 'articles#index'
  end
  match '*path', to: redirect("/#{I18n.default_locale}/%{path}")
  match '', to: redirect("/#{I18n.default_locale}")
end

This routes config will have redirect loop error. When you go to http://localhost:3000/abc you will see it.

So i suggest config routes like this to avoid redirect loop error.

Blog::Application.routes.draw do
  scope ':locale', locale: /#{I18n.available_locales.join("|")}/ do
    resources :articles
    root to: 'articles#index'
    match '*path', to: redirect("/#{I18n.default_locale}")
  end
  match '*path', to: redirect("/#{I18n.default_locale}/%{path}")
  match '', to: redirect("/#{I18n.default_locale}")
end

This is probably a dumb question but, does using Globalize3 mean our original table (say Articles) now has empty columns for attributes that are translated and stored in the translation table?

Hi! I have the following problem: When I navigate across the site my locale changes to default. For Example when I am on index page and hit wookie and then go to another page my locale changes back to :en. I just can't get why?

my model is:
``` class Post < ActiveRecord::Base

attr_accessible :text, :title

translates :title, :text

validates :title, :presence => true,
:length => { :minimum => 5 }
has_many :comments, :dependent => :destroy

class Translation
attr_accessible :locale
end
end ```

And application controller
``` before_filter :set_locale

private

def set_locale
I18n.locale= params[:locale] if params[:locale].present?
end ```
Thanks in advice!

Anybody has any tips on how to seed the database with the translations?

Hi guys,

I'm following the tutorial, but I'm blocked to the migration which doesn't work.

==  AddTranslationsToEventCategory: migrating =================================
rake aborted!
An error has occurred, this and all later migrations canceled:

PG::Error: ERROR:  relation "translations" does not exist
LINE 4:              WHERE a.attrelid = '"translations"'::regclass
                                        ^
:             SELECT a.attname, format_type(a.atttypid, a.atttypmod), d.adsrc, a.attnotnull
              FROM pg_attribute a LEFT JOIN pg_attrdef d
                ON a.attrelid = d.adrelid AND a.attnum = d.adnum
             WHERE a.attrelid = '"translations"'::regclass
               AND a.attnum > 0 AND NOT a.attisdropped
             ORDER BY a.attnum

I've created a question on StackOverflow, but haven't any clue yet.

I wonder if anyone can help me solving this issue. My code is here

Thanks in advance

Hi, I was wondering if the field in the translation table must be the same as the one in the model. Say I want to translate description_en and would wish to have a field description_se on translation table. And further be able to access both attributes from rails admin.

Thanks Ryan for this great episode. We are waiting for your comeback.

Hi there! You probably have a typo in a date part of a migration name.
Maybe there should be "201204100000", not "291204100000"?