How to start developing multilanguage website with Nette Framework and Kdyby\Translation

Many people on Nette forum asked how to develop a multilingual website. This was my question as well and I'd like to share my solution with you. Filip Prochazka has developed Kdyby\Translation, an adapter for Symfony\Transaltion for Nette Framework, and has lots of super truper small features which you will love.

Here is a four minute long videocast, an introduction to how easy it is to start using Kdyby\Translation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFOO5j-zpSU

Installation

1) Install Nette web-project: $ composer create-project nette/web-project

2) Install Kdyby/Translation: $ composer require kdyby/translation

Configuration

in config.neon we will add an extension to enable Kdyby\Translation:

extensions:
        translation: Kdyby\Translation\DI\TranslationExtension

Presenter

In our BasePresenter we will add the variables $locale and $tranlator. Using [Dependency Injection | doc:di] mechanism we get an injected Kdyby\Translation\Translator service. (In my example, I don't use any BasePresenter, instead I only use the HomepagePresenter).

The variable $locale is persistent and will now be automatically held in the url.

{
        /** @persistent */
        public $locale;

        /** @var \Kdyby\Translation\Translator @inject */
        public $translator;
}

Router

Update the original router definition in RouterFactory.php

$router[] = new Route('[<locale=en cs|en>/]<presenter>/<action>', "Homepage:default");

(In the video, locale defaults to cs.)

Dictionaries

We will add the two files ui.cs_CZ.neon and ui.en_US.neon to the folder app/lang. Here ui is the name of our dictionary and cs_CZ is a combination of language and state. (ISO_639-1 and ISO 3166-1)

If we want a specific translation with localization, e.g. French speaking Canadians, we will use fr_CA.

Keeping both the language and the country in the culture is necessary because you may have a different French translation for users from France, Belgium or Canada, and a different Spanish content for users from Spain or Mexico. The language is a code of two lowercase characters, according to the ISO 639-1 standard (for instance, en for English). The country is a code of two uppercase characters, according to the ISO 3166-1 standard (for instance, GB for Great Britain).

http://symfony.com/legacy/doc/book/1_0/en/13-I18n-and-L10n

Dictionary content

The default syntax is Neon, you can read more about its amazing syntax http://ne-on.org.

ui.cs_CZ.neon

title: Vitejte

ui.en_US.neon

title: Hello

Template

In our template, we will use the macro {_ ui.title} for putting translated phrase.

Profit

It's really easy to start.

For more information read the official documentation for Kdyby\Translation.