No, I’m still using the same database structure (all attributes in the main table, plus translatable attributes in a separate table).
The reason is that it makes it a lot easier to handle missing translations. Having a default or main language allows you to easily fall back to that language in case a translation doesn’t exist, without having to make another query.
Also, in my experience it matches the way most multilingual sites work. They might start as single language sites, or maybe already plan to be multilingual, but almost always they start entering content in the main language, and translations are added afterwards.
Thanks for your fast reply. Would there be any way to adapt your behaviour to allow my kind of db scheme? (one table for non-translatable stuff, the other for all languages)
I haven’t tried, but CActiveDataProvider takes a CDbCriteria object as a parameter. So, if you pass it a criteria object that selects also the related language tables (using “with” or “scopes”, what you prefer) then it all should work. What I mean is that you should pass CActiveDataProvider the same criteria that you pass to a findAll() call in order to get the translations.
The behavior I’m using expects the main model to have the main attributes defined, so that you can call $news->title, and get the title in the current language. But you could define these placeholder attributes directly in the model, instead of the database. So, in your News model, you’d define the attributes:
public $title;
public $intro;
public $content;
...
This would allow you to continue using $news->title and get the translated title, even if the title field doesn’t exist in the news table.
But doing this means you won’t have the fallback value. If the title translated in the current language does not exist you will get a blank title…
If I understand correctly, I could fill those attributes up with the current language first, check if they’re empty and use a fallback language when necessary. Is there any drawback to this method (except for the extra query)?
I guess it would be better to query both languages at the same time (current and fallback) - and have the code figure out which one to use - or using a query that will select the right values at once?
Something like:
SELECT o.id
, o.type
, o.code
, o.position
, ifnull(t.name,d.name) name
, ifnull(t.description,d.description) description
FROM base_material o
INNER JOIN base_material_i18n d
ON ( o.id=d.base_material_id)
LEFT OUTER JOIN base_material_i18n t
ON ( d.base_material_id=t.base_material_id AND t.localization_id='nl' )
WHERE d.localization_id='en'
I don’t think I follow you. You could make a query like that, but the purpose of all this was to avoid having to do it. Just by declaring relations and using a behavior you should be able to get the data in the right language.
What I was trying to say is that if you don’t want to have the name and description attributes on the main table, you don’t have to. You can declare them as public properties of your model, and let the behavior populate them with the right data coming from the translations table.
But I think you are right in that you could get current and fallback languages in the same query. I’d try to define a relation with the i18n table like this:
'i18n' => array(self::HAS_MANY, 'ModelLang', 'model_id', 'on'=>"i18n.lang_id='".Yii::app()->language."' OR i18n.lang_id='".Yii::app()->params['defaultLanguage']."'", 'index'=>'lang_id'),
Then, in the behavior’s afterFind() method, you would check for those translations, and set the main model attribute to either of the two (the current language if it exists, the fallback otherwise).
Sorry, I made a mistake in my example. In Section model, the “localized” scope should use the relation “i18nSection”, not “i18n”, since that’s the relation name we have defined in the model. (You can use whatever name you want for the relation, just make sure you use the same name in the scope).
//Section.php
public function localized() {
$this->getDbCriteria()->mergeWith(array(
'with'=>'i18nSection',
));
return $this;
}
Thanks for your fast reply i’ll try it. should i create two table for each model. like news for News model and news_lang for NewsLang model. sorry i’m new bie
You should create rules for those attributes, as if they were attributes from the model itself. Better if you use params instead of hardcoding them, something like:
You probably want to add a __isset magic overload as well:
public function __isset($name){
if (! parent::__isset($name)) {
return ($this->hasLangAttribute($name));
} else {
return true;
}
}
I haven’t tested it yet, but something along those lines will do.
I also have suggestions for better names for relName1 and relName2: localizedRelation and multilangRelation
As a final thought, the point where you create $this->langForeignKey from $owner->tableName() is broken if tableName returns a string containing the database name (e.g. ‘mydb.products’)
You can replace
$owner->tableName()
with
array_pop(explode('.',$owner->tableName()))
to achieve that extra compatibility.
But those are all small points. All in all, this multilang stuff is really useful.
I’m using the MultilingualBehaviour, and it’s working fine in an example I created. The user gets to choose in wich language wants to display the sections and posts related, and it gets the translation correctly.
But my question is how I change the Models and Controllers of the Posts and Section (in the example) to be able to introduce all the files in the diferent lenguages in the Add and Update Form?
Using the previous MultilingualActiveRecord class, by defining the localizedAttributes, languages, etc. it was correctly displayed all the language fields on the form view…
Can you show us the code in order to achieve that?
Hi, it’s looking in the Post model because that’s what we’re after, in “multilang” mode: to make appear the attributes of PostLang model as if they were attributes of Post, for easier handling (like title_es, title_de, etc).
Probably the problem is that you are not loading your model in multilang mode. In my controllers I use this modified loadModel():
public function loadModel($id, $ml=false) {
if ($ml) {
$model = News::model()->with('multilang')->findByPk((int) $id);
} else {
$model = News::model()->findByPk((int) $id);
}
if ($model === null)
throw new CHttpException(404, 'The requested page does not exist.');
return $model;
}
Then in my update action I load the model like this:
public function actionUpdate($id) {
$model = $this->loadModel($id, true);
...
}
