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Lost in translation

Rails i18n web interface

Translate your apps with pleasure (sort of...) and for free. It's simple i18n web interface, build on top of twitter bootstrap, that one may find helpful in translating app by non-technicals.

Highly inspired by Copycopter by thoughtbot.

travis status

Features

  1. Runs with your app - no need for external services
  2. Support for array types, (ie. date.abbr_day_names)
  3. Versioning translations - you can always check, how value did look like in past
  4. Possibility to synchronize translations between environments or apps
  5. Easy to install - works as an engine, comes with simple generator
  6. You can always export all translations to plain old YAML file which can then be imported elsewhere. Translations can also be exported to (and then imported from) a CSV file so that e.g. a third party can easily edit translations for you using any spreadsheet editor, without access to your website's Lit panel.
  7. Has build in wysiwyg editor (jQuery TE)
  8. Translating apps directly in frontend (see bellow)
  9. (On request) stores paths where translation keys were called
  10. (On request) is able to show all translation keys used to render current page

Screenshots

Feature overview on YouTube

lit live translation

Check wiki for more: Screenshots

Installation

  1. Add lit gem to your Gemfile
gem 'lit'

For Ruby < 1.9 use gem 'lit', '= 0.2.4', as next versions introduced new ruby hash syntax.

  1. run bundle install

  2. Add config.i18n.available_locales = [...] to application.rb - it's required to precompile appropriate language flags in lit backend.

  3. run installation generator bundle exec rails g lit:install (for production/staging environment redis is suggested as key value engine. hash will not work in multi process environment)

  4. After doing above and restarting app, point your browser to http://app/lit

  5. Profit!

You may want to take a look at generated initializer in config/initializers/lit.rb and change some default configuration options.

So... again - what is it and how to use it?

Lit is Rails engine - it runs in it's own namespace, by default it's available under /lit. It provides UI for managing translations of your app.

Once you call I18n.t() function from your views, Lit is asked whether it has or not proper value for it. If translation is present in database and is available for Lit, it's served back. If it does not exist, record is automatically created in database with initial value provided in default option key. If default key is not present, value nil is saved to database. When app is starting, Lit will preload all keys from your local config/locale/*.yml files - this is why app startup may take a while.

To optimize translation key lookup, Lit can use different cache engines. For production with many workers redis is suggested, for local development hash will be fine (hash is stored in memory, so if you have many workers and will update translation value in backend, only one worker will have proper translation in it's cache - db will be updated anyway).

Keys ending with _html have auto wysiwyg support.

Import and export

Export

Translations can be exported using the lit:export rake task:

$ rake lit:export

The task exports to YAML format by default, which can be overridden by setting the FORMAT environment variable to csv. As well as this, by default, it exports all of your application's locales; using the LOCALES environment variable you can limit it to specific locales. Using OUTPUT environment variable you can specify the output file (defaults to config/locales/lit.yml or .csv).

For example:

$ rake lit:export FORMAT=csv LOCALES=en,pl OUTPUT=export.csv

...will only export the en and pl locales, producing CSV output to export.csv in the current folder.

Using the task lit:export_splitted does the same as lit:export but splits the locales by their name (config/locales/en.yml, etc).

Optionally, the INCLUDE_HITS_COUNT option (only applicable for CSV export) can be used to include current hits count for each localization key. Note that it only makes sense to use this option when Redis is Lit's key-value engine because these counters are stored in cache and not in the database.

Import

Translation import is handled using the lit:import task, where imported file name should be specified in the FILE envionment variable:

$ rake lit:import FILE=stuff.csv

Optionally, LOCALES and SKIP_NIL environment variables can be used to select specific locales to import from a multi-locale CSV file and to prevent nil values from being set as translated values for localizations, respectively. The following call:

$ rake lit:import FILE=stuff.csv LOCALES=en,pl SKIP_NIL=1

...will only load en and pl locales from the file, skipping nil values.

Additionally, there is the lit:warm_up_keys task (temporarily aliased as lit:raw_import for compatibility) which serves a different purpose: rather than for actual import of translations, it is intended to pre-load into database translations from a specific locale's YAML file when the application is first deployed to a server and not all translation keys are present in the database yet. This task also takes the SKIP_NIL option in a similar way as the import task.

$ rake lit:warm_up_keys FILES=config/locales/en.yml LOCALES=en

In this case, when the config/locales/en.yml contains a translation for foo which doesn't have a key in the DB yet, it will be created, but if it already exists in the DB with a translation, it won't be overridden.

Deleted keys

Keys marked as deleted (i.e. still existing but deleted from the Lit UI) are not exported. In order to make these keys exported again, you need to restore them from the "Deleted and visited again" view.

Deleted keys whose translations are encountered during import are restored automatically.

Cloud translation services

Lit can use external translation services such as Google Cloud Translation API and Yandex.Translate API to tentatively translate localizations to a given language. Currently, Google and Yandex translation providers are supported, but extending it to any other translation provider of your choice is as easy as subclassing Lit::CloudTranslation::Providers::Base; see classes in lib/lit/cloud_translation/providers for reference.

Usage

Configure your translation provider using one of routines described below. When a translation provider is configured, each localization in Lit web UI will have a "Translate using Provider Name" button next to it, which by default translates to the localization's language from the localization currently saved for the app's I18n.default_locale. Next to the button, there is a dropdown that allows translating from the key's localization in a language different than the default one.

Google Cloud Translation API

Insert this into your Lit initializer:

require 'lit/cloud_translation/providers/google'

Lit::CloudTranslation.provider = Lit::CloudTranslation::Providers::Google

...and make sure you have this in your Gemfile:

gem 'google-cloud-translate', '~> 1.2.4'

...we also support V2 of Google Cloud Translate gem, should you need it:

gem 'google-cloud-translate', '~> 2.1.2'

To use translation via Google, you need to obtain a service account key containing all the credentials required by the API.

These credentials can be given in three ways:

  • via a .json keyfile, the path to which should be stored in the GOOGLE_TRANSLATE_API_KEYFILE environment variable,
  • programmatically, in the initializer - be sure to use secrets in all the sensitive fields so you don't expose private credentials in the code: 
    Lit::CloudTranslation.configure do |config|
  config.keyfile_hash = {
    'type' => 'service_account',
    'project_id' => 'foo',
    'private_key_id' => 'keyid',
    ... # see Google docs link above for reference
  }
end

# For example, for Rails 6, from encrypted credentials file (HashWithIndifferentAccess is used, because the keys in
 the credentials.config could be strings or, as well, symbols):

Lit::CloudTranslation.configure do |config|
  config.keyfile_hash = HashWithIndifferentAccess.new(Rails.application.credentials.config[:google_translate_api])
end
  • directly via GOOGLE_TRANSLATE_API_<element> environment variables, where e.g. the GOOGLE_TRANSLATE_API_PROJECT_ID variable corresponds to the project_id element of a JSON keyfile. Typically, only the following variables are mandatory:
    • GOOGLE_TRANSLATE_API_PROJECT_ID
    • GOOGLE_TRANSLATE_API_PRIVATE_KEY (make sure that it contains correct line breaks and markers of the private key's begin and end)
    • GOOGLE_TRANSLATE_API_CLIENT_EMAIL

Yandex.Translate API

Insert this into your Lit initializer:

require 'lit/cloud_translation/providers/yandex'

Lit::CloudTranslation.provider = Lit::CloudTranslation::Providers::Yandex

To use Yandex translation, an API key must be obtained. Then, you can pass it to your application via the YANDEX_TRANSLATE_API_KEY environment variable.

The API key can also be set programmatically in your Lit initializer (again, be sure to use secrets if you choose to do so):

Lit::CloudTranslation.configure do |config|
  config.api_key = 'the_api_key'
end

0.3 -> 1.0 upgrade guide

Also applies to upgrading from 0.4.pre.alpha versions.

  1. Specify gem 'lit', '~> 1.0' in your Gemfile and run bundle update lit.
  2. Run Lit migrations - rails db:migrate.
    • Caution: One of the new migrations adds a unique index in lit_localizations on (localization_key_id, locale_id), which may cause constraint violations in some cases. If you encounter such errors during running this migration - in this case you'll need to enter Rails console and remove duplicates manually. The following query might be helpful to determine duplicate locale/localization key ID pairs:
    Lit::Localization.group(:locale_id, :localization_key_id).having('count(*) > 1').count

0.2 -> 0.3 upgrade guide

  1. Specify exact lit version in your Gemfile: gem 'lit', '~> 0.3.0'
  2. Run bundle update lit
  3. Add config.i18n.available_locales to your application.rb (see 3rd point from Installation info)
  4. Add config.i18n.enforce_available_locales = true config to your application.rb
  5. Compare your current lit.rb initializer with template.

On-site live translations

  1. Add Lit::FrontendHelper to your ApplicationController
helper Lit::FrontendHelper
  1. In you layout file include lit assets
<% if admin_user_signed_in? %>
  <%= lit_frontend_assets %>
<% end %>

  1. You're good to go - now log in to lit (if required) and open your frontend in separate tab (to have session persisted). On the bottom-right of your page you should see "Enable / disable lit highlight" - after enabling it you'll be able to click and translate phrases directly in your frontend

  2. Once enabled, all translations called via t helper function be rendered inside <span /> tag, what may break your layout (ie if you're using translated values as button values or as placeholders, etc). To avoid that add skip_lit: true to t() call or use I18n.t.

  3. This feature requires jQuery! (at least for now)

Storing request info

  1. Include Lit::RequestInfoStore concern in your ApplicationController
include Lit::RequestInfoStore
  1. In lit initializer (lit.rb) set store_request_info config to true
Lit.store_request_info = true
  1. Lit authorized user must be signed in for this feature to work!

Showing called translations in frontend

  1. Add Lit::FrontendHelper in your ApplicationController
helper Lit::FrontendHelper
  1. Include Lit::RequestKeysStore concern in your ApplicationController
include Lit::RequestKeysStore
  1. Enable storing of request keys in lit initializer config/initializers/lit.rb
Lit.store_request_keys = true
  1. On the bottom of you layout file call lit_translations_info helper function
<%= lit_translations_info %>

  1. From now on you'll be able to see all translation keys that were used to render current page. This feature works great with on-site live translations!

  2. Lit authorized user must be signed in for this feature to work! This feature requires jQuery!

ToDo

  • Versioning
  • API
  • Synchronization between environments
  • Rewrite initializer
  • Rewrite exporter (which is now code from copycopter)
  • Support for array types (ie. date.abbr_day_names)
  • Generator
  • Support for wysiwyg
  • Better cache
  • Support for other key value providers (ie. Redis does not support Array types in easy way) (not applicable, as array storage works now with redis).
  • Integration with ActiveAdmin
  • Support for Proc defaults (like in I18n.t('not_exising_keys', default: lambda{|_, options| 'text'}) )

Testing

  1. gem install bundler && bundle install - ensure Bundler and all required gems are installed
  2. bundle exec appraisal install - install gems from appraisal's gemfiles
  3. cp test/dummy/config/database.yml.sample test/dummy/config/database.yml - move a database.yml in place (remember to fill your DB credentials in it)
  4. RAILS_ENV=test bundle exec appraisal rails-5.2 rake db:setup - setup lit DB (see test/config/database.yml); do it only once, it does not matter which Rails version you use for appraisal
  5. bundle exec appraisal rake - run the tests!

License

Lit is free software, and may be redistributed under the terms specified in the MIT-LICENSE file.