Single Table Globalize3

Single Table Globalize3 is the successor of Globalize3. Instead of creating tables for every model, it just creates one single table to store all translations

Motivations

Globalize3 is a great way to internationalize rails applications. However, I feel uncomfortable to add too many tables to my database. Maybe it's not that many, but when ever I want to translate more models/attributes, I will have to add a migration to either create new tables or add new columns. Why not just have a single table to store all the translations instead?

Credits

Sven Fuchs, Joshua Harvey, Clemens Kofler, John-Paul Bader, Tomasz Stachewicz, Philip Arndt and other contributors for the great globalize3 project
My girlfriend for inspiring me to complete this

Requirements

ActiveRecord > 3.0.0
I18n

Installation

To install Single Table Globalize3 with its default setup just use:

gem install single_table_globalize3

When using bundler put it in your Gemfile:

source 'https://rubygems.org'

gem 'single_table_globalize3'

Model translations

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 # => 'SingleTableGlobalize3 rocks!'

I18n.locale = :vi
post.title # => 'Chuyển ngữ dễ dàng!'

To setup, you only need to run the generator and migration

rails generate single_table_globalize3:migration
rake db:migrate

If you want to enable versioning with paper trail, just pass in argument --with-versioning

rails generate single_table_globalize3:migration --with-versioning
rake db:migrate

And enable versioning in models

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  translates :title, :text, :versioning => true
end

I18n fallbacks for empty translations

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 = true

By default, single_table_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

I18n.locale = :en
post.title # => 'SingleTableGlobalize3 rocks!'
post.name  # => 'SingleTableGlobalize3'

I18n.locale = :nl
post.title # => ''
post.name  # => 'SingleTableGlobalize3'

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  translates :title, :name, :fallbacks_for_empty_translations => true
end

I18n.locale = :en
post.title # => 'SingleTableGlobalize3 rocks!'
post.name  # => 'SingleTableGlobalize3'

I18n.locale = :nl
post.title # => 'SingleTableGlobalize3 rocks!'
post.name  # => 'SingleTableGlobalize3'

Fallback locales to each other

It is possible to setup locales to fallback to each other.

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  translates :title, :name
end

SingleTableGlobalize3.fallbacks = {:en => [:en, :pl], :pl => [:pl, :en]}

I18n.locale = :en
en_post = Post.create(:title => 'en_title')

I18n.locale = :pl
pl_post = Post.create(:title => 'pl_title')
en_post.title # => 'en_title'

I18n.locale = :en
en_post.title # => 'en_title'
pl_post.title # => 'pl_title'

Scoping objects by those with translations

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:0x007faf99ba03b0> {
    :created_at => Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:21:14 UTC +00:00,
            :id => 1,
          :name => "Cool!",
         :title => "SingleTableGlobalize3",
    :updated_at => Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:23:52 UTC +00:00
  },
  #<Post:0x007faf95c12f68> {
    :created_at => Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:25:10 UTC +00:00,
            :id => 2,
          :name => "Test",
         :title => "Title",
    :updated_at => Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:25:10 UTC +00:00
  }
]

Post.with_translations(I18n.locale)
# => [
  #<Post:0x007faf99ba03b0> {
    :created_at => Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:21:14 UTC +00:00,
            :id => 1,
          :name => "Cool!",
         :title => "SingleTableGlobalize3",
    :updated_at => Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:23:52 UTC +00:00
  },
  #<Post:0x007faf95c12f68> {
    :created_at => Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:25:10 UTC +00:00,
            :id => 2,
          :name => "Test",
         :title => "Title",
    :updated_at => Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:25:10 UTC +00:00
  }
]

Post.with_translations('de')
# => []

Changes since Globalize3

Single table with polymorphic association