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Internationalization
customization
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This guide covers how Spree uses Rails' internationalization features, and how you can leverage and extend these features in your Spree contributions and extensions.

Internationalization

Default Locale

Each Store has their own default_locale attribute. Alongside that, you can also set supported_locales which will enable multi-language capabilities for that Store.

For locales, we use symbols such as en,es-MX etc - full list of supported locales is available in the Spree I18n GitHub repository.

Default Currency

Each Store has their own default_currency attribute. Alongside that, you can also set supported_currencies which will enable multi-currency capabilities for that Store.

For currencies, we use ISO 4217 symbols, eg. USD , CAD, EUR

Resource Translations

As of Spree 4.6, resources with user-facing content fields now have built in support for translations. Translation functionality is handled by the Mobility gem. Spree allows you to translate the following resources:

Resource Translatable Fields
Product name, description, slug, meta_description, meta_keywords, meta_title
Taxon name, description, permalink
Taxonomy name
Option Type name, presentation
Option Value name, presentation
Property name, presentation, filter_param
Product Property value, filter_param
Store name, meta_description, meta_keywords, seo_title, facebook, twitter, instagram, customer_support_email, description, address, contact_phone, new_order_notifications_email

Our translatable resources are configured with Mobility’s Table Backend storage strategy. The way this works is that each translatable resource has a corresponding translations table in the database, in which translation values are stored - for example, product translations are stored in spree_product_translations.

As of 4.6, data for translatable fields exists solely in the the translation tables so that there is a single source of truth. In the database, the translatable fields on the resource itself will always null. Even if there is only data for a single language, the data for those fields will be stored in the corresponding translations table. In the code, the data will still be accessible via attribute accessors like .name and .description in the code.

Read more about how to work with translations by reading Mobility's usage docs.

Resource Translations Implementation

Each translatable resource includes the TranslatableResource module, which sets the default scope for the resource to i18n. This makes it so that when querying the translatable resource on a translatable field, Mobility will know to search in the translation tables. Read more about querying translatable fields and the i18n scope in the Mobility docs.

Due to some shortcomings of the Mobility gem, not all Active Record Query Interface methods work with translations. This includes:

  • selecting distinct when ordering by a translated field raises an error. To work around this, explicitly select the translated field that you are ordering by. For example, instead of Spree::Product.order(:name).distinct do Spree::Product.select(:name).order(:name).distinct
  • calling first_or_create or first_or_initialize on a clause that checks for a translated field does not work correctly with Mobility. For example, the following line of code will not perform as expected: Spree::Product.where(name: ‘Denim Shirt').first_or_create! Instead, you’ll need to rewrite it as an if statement that calls either first or create like so:
if Spree::Product.where(name: 'Denim Shirt').any?
  Spree::Product.where(name: 'Denim Shirt').first
else
  Spree::Product.create!(name: 'Denim Shirt')
end
  • Joining on a resource with translations and then filtering by a translated field on the resource that you joined does not work correctly. For example, the following statement will not select the correct products: Spree::Product.joins(:taxons).where(taxons: {name: "30% Off"}). Instead, you can make use of the join_translation_table method in in the TranslatableResourceScopes Module. The above query can be rewritten like this:
Spree::Product.joins(:taxons)
              .joins_translation_table(Spree::Taxon)
              .where(Spree::Taxon.translation_table_alias => {name: "30% Off"})

Spree 4.5 and lower

If you are using Spree version 4.5 or lower and are currently unable to upgrade, you need to install Spree Globalize extension to enable translations. This extension uses Globalize library under the hood.

This gem will allow you to translate:

  • Products
  • Promotions
  • Option Types
  • Taxonomies
  • Taxons
  • Properties
  • Shipping Methods

The spree_i18n project

Spree now stores all of the translation information in a separate GitHub project known as Spree I18n. This is a stand alone project with a large number of volunteer committers who maintain the locale files. This is basically the same approach followed by the Rails project which keeps their localizations in rails-i18n.

The project is actually a Spree extension. This extension contains translations files. To translate models (provide translations for Products, Taxons, etc) you will need to install also Spree Globalize.

Translation Files

Each language is stored in a YAML file located in config/locales. Each YAML file contains one top level key which is the language code for the translations contained within that file. The following is a snippet showing the basic layout of a locale file:

pt-BR:
  spree:
    say_no: "Não"
    say_yes: "Sim"

All translations for Spree are "namespaced" within the spree key so that they don't conflict with translations from other parts of the parent application.

Please submit Pull Requests or issues directly to Spree I18n for missing translations.

Localization Files

Spree maintains its localization information in a YAML file using a naming convention similar to that of the Rails project. Each of the localization filenames contains a prefix representing the language code of the locale. For example, the Russian translation is contained in config/locales/ru.yml.

Spree has over 43 locale files and counting. See the [GitHub Repository](https://github.com/spree/spree\_i18n/tree/master/config/locales) for a complete list.

Required Files

Each locale that you wish to support will require both a Rails and Spree translation. The required Spree translation files are available automatically when you install the spree_i18n gem.

You don't need to copy any files from spree_i18n or rails-i18n for their translations to be available within your application. They are made available automatically, because both spree_i18n and rails-i18n are railties.

Translating Views

{% hint style="info" %} This section is only applicable for optionalspree_frontend and spree_backend gems {% endhint %}

When reviewing the source of any view in Spree you'll notice that all text is rendered by passing a string to a helper method similar to:

<%= Spree.t(:price) %>

The Spree.t() helper method looks up the currently configured locale and retrieves the translated value from the relevant locale YAML file. Assuming a default locale, this translation would be fetched from the en translations collated from the application, spree_i18n and rails-i18n. Its relative key within those translation files would need to be this:

en:
  spree:
    price: Price

Localizing Extensions

Spree extensions can contain their own config/locales directory where developers can include YAML files for each language they wish to support.

We strongly urge all extension developers to ensure all customer facing text is rendered via the Spree.t() helper method even if they only include a single default language locale file (as other users can simply include the required YAML file and translations in their site extension).