Rails 4 Manage File based Translations at Admin End

Question

I am working on a rails website and I need to make it multilingual. I have created yml files for the languages needed for translation.

What I want is to provide the Admin access to files to edit them instead of browsing through the files, by a section in Admin panel. Is there any gem for managing translations through Admin end.

I have never implemented translations before.

WeezHard · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-16T07:28:45.707

By default Rails uses YAML files to store internationalization information. But we are not restricted to use YAML (that is only capable of reading translations but cannot dynamically store them). We can use any database as backend.

To start, you can use this gem: https://github.com/svenfuchs/i18n-active_record

You can change the default backend like that:

I18n.backend = Globalize::Backend::Static.new

You can also use Chan backend to chain multiple backends together.

# config/initializers/locale.rb
I18n.backend = I18n::Backend::Chain.new(I18n::Backend::ActiveRecord.new, I18n.backend)

But, As the translations are accessed frequently in every request page, ActiveRecord is not the best approach. For these reason, a key-value store is the way to go.

You can use Redis database for this:

First install Redis

$ brew install redis

Install redis gem:

# Gemfile
source 'http://rubygems.org'

# ...    

gem 'redis'

Now you can change the backend like that:

# config/initializers/locale.rb
I18n.backend = I18n::Backend::KeyValue.new(Redis.new)

Code to add translation:

# /app/views/admin/translations/index.html.erb

<%= form_tag admin_translations_path do %>
    <p>
        <%= label_tag :locale %><br>
        <%= text_field_tag :locale %>
    </p>

    <p>
        <%= label_tag :key %><br>
        <%= text_field_tag :key %>
    </p>

    <p>
        <%= label_tag :value %><br>
        <%= text_field_tag :value %>
    </p>
    <p><%= submit_tag "Submit" %></p>
<% end %>

This form will POST to admin/TranslationsController's create action:

 # /app/controllers/admin/translations_controller.rb
 module Admin
    class TranslationsController < ApplicationController
         # ....

         def create
             I18n.backend.store_translations(params[:locale]), {params[:key] => params[:value]}, escape: false)
             redirect_to admin_translations_path, notice: "Translation Added"
         end
     end
end

You can also use redis-i18n gem to do the same: https://github.com/redis-store/redis-i18n

Rails 4 Manage File based Translations at Admin End

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