Simple FastGettext / Rails integration.

The idea is simple: use Rails I18n::Simple for all default translations,
and do our own translations with FastGettext!

Rails does: I18n.t('weir.rails.syntax.i.hate')
We do: _('Just translate my damn text!')

See it working in the example application.

Setup

###Installation This plugin: ./script/plugin install git://github.com/grosser/gettext_i18n_rails.git FastGettext: sudo gem install grosser-fast_gettext -s http://gems.github.com/ GetText 2.0 & GetText::ActiveRecord 0.1: rake gettext:install

Locales & initialisation

Copy default locales you want from e.g. http://github.com/svenfuchs/rails-i18n/rails/locale/de.yml
into 'config/locales'

#environment.rb
Rails::Initializer.run do |config|
  ...
  config.gem "grosser-fast_gettext", :lib => 'fast_gettext', :version => '0.2.6', :source=>"http://gems.github.com/"
end
FastGettext.add_text_domain 'app', :path => File.join(RAILS_ROOT, 'locale')

#application_controller
class ApplicationController < ...
  before_filter :set_gettext_locale
  def set_gettext_locale
    FastGettext.text_domain = 'app'
    FastGettext.available_locales = ['en','de'] #all you want to allow
    super
  end

Translating

• use some _('translations')
• run rake gettext:find, to let GetText find all translations used
• if this is your first translation: cp locale/app.pot locale/de/app.po for every locale you want to use
• translate messages in 'locale/de/app.po' (leave msgstr blank and msgstr == msgid)
  new translations will be marked "fuzzy", search for this and remove it, so that they will be used. Obsolete translations are marked with ~#, they usually can be removed since they are no longer needed
• run rake gettext:pack to write GetText format translation files

Namespaces

Car|Model means Model in namespace Car.
You do not have to translate this into english "Model", if you use the namespace-aware translation s_('Car|Model') == 'Model' #when no translation was found

Plurals

GetText supports pluralization n_('Apple','Apples',3) == 'Apples'

Unfound translations

Sometimes GetText cannot find a translation like _("x"+"u"),
for this cases either add N_('xu') somewhere else in the code,
where it can be seen by GetText, or even in a totally seperate file like
unfound_translations.rb, or use the gettext_test_log rails plugin
to find all translations that where used while testing.

###Improving Rails translations You certanly want to add at least: #de.yml active_record: models: car: 'Auto' ... So that Rails error messages use the translated version of your model. more help

Author

GetText -> Masao Mutoh, from whom i learned how the internals work :) FastGettext -> Me

Michael Grosser
grosser.michael@gmail.com
Hereby placed under public domain, do what you want, just do not hold me accountable...