I18n::Workflow

This gem contains a workflow for I18n in Rails projects. I18n is a great tool for translating an application, but the workflow might get tedious when working with larger applications and managing a lot of translations. The workflow in this gem builds upon the basics of I18n and extends it to make translating easier.

The workflow and I18n extensions are being used in a Rails 4.x project. Support for Rails 3.x is not available at this moment.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'i18n-workflow', github: 'moneybird/i18n-workflow'

And then execute:

$ bundle

See Usage below for the specific initialisation codes for each part of the workflow. If you want to initialize the complete workflow, please add the following to the configuration of your application:

# config/initializers/locale.rb
I18n.exception_handler = I18n::Workflow::ExceptionHandler.new unless Rails.env.production?
I18n.backend.class.send(:include, I18n::Backend::Fallbacks)
I18n.backend.class.send(:include, I18n::Backend::Cascade)
I18n.backend.class.send(:include, I18n::Workflow::AlwaysCascade)
I18n.backend.class.send(:include, I18n::Workflow::ExplicitScopeKey)

# Make sure to disable raising error in ActionView:
config.action_view.raise_on_missing_translations = false

To write missing translations to config/missing_translations.yml, please add after hooks to your application controller and test suite:

# After each request, write all missing translations to disk
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  after_filter do
    I18n.exception_handler.store_missing_translations unless Rails.env.production?
  end
end

# After running specs, write all missing translations to disk
RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.after(:suite) do
    I18n.exception_handler.store_missing_translations
  end
end

Usage

Conventions

This workflow is centered around a few conventions to make translating easier:

1. All locales are stored in config/locales.
2. There is one locale file for each language. The locales are stored in YAML.
3. To prevent overlaps in keys and scopes, each scope is appended by _scope:

---
en:
  invoices: "Invoices"
  invoices_scope:
    invoice_id: Invoice ID

4. Lookup of translations always cascades, allowing for reuse of keys but also fine grained scoping if necessary.
5. During development and testing, a special missing_translations.yml file collects all missing translations. Translations are done in this file and merged with the master locale file to ensure the right sorting and scoping.
6. Editing and removing of translations is still done in the master files in config/locales

ExceptionHandler

After loading the gem and developing your application, a file config/missing_translations.yml is created. This file contains all missing keys that are encountered when running code. The keys are collected by the custom exception handler I18n::Workflow::ExceptionHandler.

When new keys need to be translated, the translation can be done in the missing_translations.yml file. By calling bundle exec merge_missing_translations the missing translations are merged into the locale files. Any keys that are kept untranslated are not copied, all keys are automatically sorted.

Usage:

# Install the exception handler in I18n.
# You probably want to skip collecting missing translations in production
I18n.exception_handler = I18n::Workflow::ExceptionHandler.new unless Rails.env.production?

Furthermore you should call store_missing_translations to write the missing translations to disk.

# After each request, write all missing translations to disk
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  after_filter do
    I18n.exception_handler.store_missing_translations unless Rails.env.production?
  end
end

# After running specs, write all missing translations to disk
RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.after(:suite) do
    I18n.exception_handler.store_missing_translations
  end
end

Explicit scoping

Although our convention states that each scope should have "_scope" appended, we still want to use conventional lookup of translations in scopes. The workflow allows you to write I18n.t("key", scope: [:invoices]) and still get the result for the invoices_scope. This is done by extending the backend of I18n:

I18n.backend.class.send(:include, I18n::Workflow::ExplicitScopeKey)

A caveat of this approach is that some Rails helpers use the functionality of I18n to retreive a hash with translations instead of one string value. For example:

# Rails uses this method to retreive a hash with options for number_to_currency
I18n.t("number.currency.format")

In YAML, the format scope should not get the "_scope" extension, because it is used as a key instead of a scope:

---
nl:
  number_scope:
    currency_scope:
      format:
        delimiter: "."
        format: "%u %n"
        negative_format: "%u-%n"
        precision: 2
        separator: ","
        unit: €

This caveat is only applicable to a small list of Rails helpers. In our experience we never use the method of retreiving a hash from I18n in our application, therefor we find it acceptable to have to work around this issue.

Always cascade

By default, I18n will not cascade to a parent scope if the key is not found in the given scope. It is possible to use the cascade: true option for every call to I18n.translate. By including I18n::Workflow::AlwaysCascade, cascading will be default for I18n.

I18n.backend.class.send(:include, I18n::Backend::Cascade)
I18n.backend.class.send(:include, I18n::Workflow::AlwaysCascade)

This approach has also a great advantage when using automatic Rails view scoping: t(".show"). By default the lookup of this translation will start in controller_scope.template_scope.show, but will cascade down to the highest level to attain perfect reusability of code whilest still allowing a more detailed translation for a view when needed.

Check missing translations

In a development environment, it is advisable to add translations for keys as soon as possible. The bundle exec check_missing_translations script checks the contents of config/missing_translations.yml and will print an error when the file is not empty. The script will return a proper exit code based on the outcome, making the script very usable in continuous integration.