Globalize3 is the successor of Globalize for Rails. Globalize is targeted at ActiveRecord 3. It is compatible with and builds on the new I18n API in Ruby on Rails and adds model translations to ActiveRecord.
Globalize3 is much more lightweight and compatible than its predecessor Globalize for Rails was. Model translations in Globalize3 use default ActiveRecord features and do not limit any ActiveRecord functionality any more.
ActiveRecord > 3.0.0.rc
I18n
To install Globalize3 with its default setup just use:
$ gem install globalize3
Model translations allow you to translate your models’ attribute values. E.g.
class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
translates :title, :text
end
Allows you to translate the attributes :title and :text per locale:
I18n.locale = :en
post.title # => Globalize3 rocks!
I18n.locale = :he
post.title # => גלובאלייז2 שולט!
In order to make this work, you’ll need to add the appropriate translation tables. Globalize3 comes with a handy helper method to help you do this. It’s called create_translation_table!. Here’s an example:
Note that if you’re using rails ~> 3.1.0.rc migrations has only the change instance method
class CreatePosts < ActiveRecord::Migration
def self.up
create_table :posts do |t|
t.timestamps
end
Post.create_translation_table! :title => :string, :text => :text
end
def self.down
drop_table :posts
Post.drop_translation_table!
end
end
Do not use the change method
class CreatePosts < ActiveRecord::Migration
def up
create_table :posts do |t|
t.timestamps
end
Post.create_translation_table! :title => :string, :text => :text
end
def down
drop_table :posts
Post.drop_translation_table!
end
end
Note that the ActiveRecord model Post must already exist and have a translates directive listing the translated fields.
As well as creating a translation table, you can also use create_translation_table! to migrate across any
existing data to the default locale. This can also operate in reverse to restore any translations from the default locale
back to the model when you don’t want to use a translation table anymore using drop_translation_table!
This feature makes use of untranslated_attributes which allows access to the model’s attributes as they were before
the translation was applied. Here’s an example (which assumes you already have a model called Post and its table exists):
class TranslatePosts < ActiveRecord::Migration
def self.up
Post.create_translation_table!({
:title => :string,
:text => :text
}, {
:migrate_data => true
})
end
def self.down
Post.drop_translation_table! :migrate_data => true
end
end
Globalize3 nicely integrates with vestal_versions:
require 'globalize/versioning/vestal_versions'
As of writing (2010-08-05) the original vestal_versions respository has not been updated to be compatible with Rails 3 though. You can use this fork though. Globalize3’s Gemfile is currently set up accordingly.
Please also note that update_attribute currently hides itself from dirty tracking in ActiveRecord >= 3.0.0.beta (which is considered a regression). That means that you currently need to use attribute writers or update_attributes in order to track changes/versions for your models.
Also, please see the tests in test/globalize3/versioning_test.rb for some current gotchas.
It is possible to enable fallbacks for empty translations. It will depend on the configuration setting you have set for I18n translations in your Rails config.
You can enable them by adding the next line to config/application.rb (or only config/environments/production.rb if you only want them in production)
config.i18n.fallbacks = trueBy default, globalize3 will only use fallbacks when your translation model does not exist or the translation value for the item you’ve requested is nil. However it is possible to also use fallbacks for blank translations by adding :fallbacks_for_empty_translations => true to the translates method.
class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
translates :title, :name
end
puts post.translations.inspect
# => [#<Post::Translation id: 1, post_id: 1, locale: "en", title: "Globalize3 rocks!", name: "Globalize3">, #<Post::Translation id: 2, post_id: 1, locale: "nl", title: '', name: nil>]
I18n.locale = :en
post.title # => 'Globalize3 rocks!'
post.name # => 'Globalize3'
I18n.locale = :nl
post.title # => ''
post.name # => 'Globalize3'
class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
translates :title, :name, :fallbacks_for_empty_translations => true
end
puts post.translations.inspect
# => [#<Post::Translation id: 1, post_id: 1, locale: "en", title: "Globalize3 rocks!", name: "Globalize3">, #<Post::Translation id: 2, post_id: 1, locale: "nl", title: '', name: nil>]
I18n.locale = :en
post.title # => 'Globalize3 rocks!'
post.name # => 'Globalize3'
I18n.locale = :nl
post.title # => 'Globalize3 rocks!'
post.name # => 'Globalize3'
To only return objects that have a translation for the given locale we can use the `with_translations` scope. This will only return records that have a translations for the passed in locale.
Post.with_translations('en') # => [#<Post::Translation id: 1, post_id: 1, locale: "en", title: "Globalize3 rocks!", name: "Globalize3">, #<Post::Translation id: 2, post_id: 1, locale: "nl", title: '', name: nil>]
Post.with_translations(I18n.locale) # => [#<Post::Translation id: 1, post_id: 1, locale: "en", title: "Globalize3 rocks!", name: "Globalize3">, #<Post::Translation id: 2, post_id: 1, locale: "nl", title: '', name: nil>]
Post.with_translations('de') # => []
- `translation_table_name` was renamed to `translations_table_name`
- `available_locales` has been removed. please use `translated_locales`
See this script by Tomasz Stachewicz: http://gist.github.com/120867
- Veger’s fork – uses default AR schema for the default locale, delegates to the translations table for other locales only
- TranslatableColumns – have multiple languages of the same attribute in a model (Iain Hecker)
- localized_record – allows records to have localized attributes without any modifications to the database (Glenn Powell)
- model_translations – Minimal implementation of Globalize2 style model translations (Jan Andersson)
- globalize2_versioning – acts_as_versioned style versioning for globalize2 (Joshua Harvey)
- i18n_multi_locales_validations – multi-locales attributes validations to validates attributes from globalize2 translations models (Sébastien Grosjean)
- globalize2 Demo App – demo application for globalize2 (Sven Fuchs)
- migrate_from_globalize1 – migrate model translations from Globalize1 to globalize2 (Tomasz Stachewicz)
- easy_globalize2_accessors – easily access (read and write) globalize2-translated fields (astropanic, Tomasz Stachewicz)
- globalize2-easy-translate – adds methods to easily access or set translated attributes to your model (bsamman)
- batch_translations – allow saving multiple globalize2 translations in the same request (Jose Alvarez Rilla)