Multilang

Multilang is a small translation library for translating database values for Rails 3.

Multilang does not create additional translation models. Multilang wants to leave out as much magic as possible.

Installation

You need configure the multilang gem inside your gemfile:

gem 'multilang'

Do not forget to run

bundle install

Basic Usage

This is a walkthrough with all steps you need to setup multilang translated attributes, including model and migration.

We’re assuming here you want a Post model with some multilang attributes, as outlined below:

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  multilang :title, :accessible => true
end

or

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  multilang :title, :description, :required => true, :length => 100, :accessible => true
end

The multilang translations are stored in the same model attributes (eg. title):

You may need to create migration for Post as usual, but multilang attributes should be in text type (or string for realy short fields and low count of application locales (I18n.available_locales)):

create_table(:posts) do |t|
  t.text :title
  t.timestamps
end

Thats it!

Now you are able to translate values for the attributes :title and :description per locale:

I18n.locale = :en
post.title = 'Multilang rocks!'
I18n.locale = :lv
post.title = 'Multilang rulle!'

I18n.locale = :en
post.title #=> Multilang rocks!
I18n.locale = :lv
post.title #=> Multilang rulle!

You may assign attributes through auto generated methods (this methods depend from I18n.available_locales):

I18n.available_locales #=> [:en. :lv]

post.title_en = 'Multilang rocks!'
post.title_lv = 'Multilang rulle!'

post.title_en #=>  'Multilang rocks!'
post.title_lv #=>  'Multilang rulle!'

You may use mass assignment on model creation (if :accessible param is defined):

Post.new(:title => {:en => 'Multilang rocks!', :lv => 'Multilang rulle!'})

or

Post.new(:title_en => 'Multilang rocks!', :title_lv => 'Multilang rulle!')

Also, you may ise same hashes with setters:

post.title = {:en => 'Multilang rocks!', :lv => 'Multilang rulle!'}

Attribute methods

You may get other translations via attribute translation method:

post.title.translation[:lv] #=> 'Multilang rocks!'
post.title.translation[:en] #=> 'Multilang rulle!'
post.title.translation.locales #=> [:en, :lv]

If you have incomplete translations, you can get translation from other locale:

post.title = {:en => 'Multilang rocks!', :lv => ''}
I18n.locale = :lv
post.title.any #=> 'Multilang rocks!'

The value from “any” method returns value for I18n.current_locale or, if value is empty, it searches through all locales. It takes searching order from I18n.available_locales array.

Validations

Multilang has some validation features:

multilang :title, :length => 100  #define maximal length validator
multilang :title, :required => true #define requirement validator 
multilang :title, :format => /regexp/ #define validates_format_of validator

Sphinx

Multilang attributes are friendly to search engines like sphinx. Attibute stored as YAML UTF-8 text.

Bugs and Feedback

If you discover any bugs or want to drop a line, feel free to create an issue on GitHub:

github.com/artworklv/multilang/issues

Copyright © 2010 Arthur Meinart, released under the MIT license