Jigsaw localization

This package is built on top of PHP JSON tongue to bring localization feature to tightenco/jigsaw using JSON files.

Get started

Requirements

• PHP 8.0 or higher.

Setup

Install the package using composer:

composer require elaborate-code/jigsaw-localization

Plug LoadLocalization to the builder by registering it in bootstrap.php:

<?php

// bootstrap.php

use ElaborateCode\JigsawLocalization\LoadLocalization;

$events->beforeBuild([LoadLocalization::class]);

Simple usage

Defining Translation Strings

1. Create a lang folder in the root of your project.
2. Create subfolders for each language/locale.
3. Populate the subfolders with JSON files that hold translations using the original text as a key, and the translation as a value.

File structure example:

Retrieving Translation Strings

Source example:

<h2> {{ __($page, "Good morning", 'en') }} </h2>

<h2> {{ __($page, "programmer", 'es') }} </h2>

<h2> {{ __($page, "Good morning", 'fr') }} </h2>

The output:

<h2> Good morning </h2>

<h2> programador </h2>

<h2> Bonjour </h2>

Locale code format

two or three lowercase letters for the language code + optionally a dash (-) with two uppercase letters for the region code. For example, all the following codes ar, es, fr-CA, haw-US are considered valid.

• ISO 639-1 or ISO 639-2 for language codes.
• ISO 3166 for region codes.

The multi folder

For organizational purpose you can group internationalized translations in one JSON using many locale keys.

/lang
    ...
    /multi
        greetings.json
        projects_short_descriptions.json
        ...

greetings.json example:

{
    "fr": {
        "Hello": "Salut",
        "Goodbye": "Au revoir"
    },
    "es": {
        "Hello": "Hola",
        "Goodbye": "Adiós"
    }
}

First level keys must be locale codes!

Using folder structure for locale code prefix

The default locale

First you need to define defaultLocale in config.php. If not set, the package will take en as a default.

<?php

// config.php

return [
    // ...
    'defaultLocale' => 'es',
    // ...
];

The translation helper

If you call the __ helper without providing a locale parameter, it will try to resolve it from the page path.

echo __($page, $text);

If you provide the __ helper with the locale parameter it will proceed with it and ignore the folder structure.

The folder structure

domain.com/{locale}/path

Pages that reside in the web root folder source are assumed to be rendered using the defaultLocale. Other pages that reside in subfolders named after a locale code have their locale set to the subfolder name

/source
    /fr
        index.blade.php
        contact.blade.php
        about.blade.php
        ...
    /es
        index.blade.php
        contact.blade.php
        about.blade.php
        ...
    ...
    index.blade.php
    contact.blade.php
    about.blade.php
    ...

The included page trick

You may find your self creating a fully coded source/index.blade.php and repeating the same code in source/fr/index.blade.php and for other locales. To avoid that we suggest the following approach:

1. Create a source/_pages directory which will contain the master pages.
2. A master page will look like any other ordinary page, it will have the HTML structure and calls to __ but no hardcoded $current_locale value .For example You may directly copy the content of source/index.blade.php to source/_pages/index.blade.php.
3. Include the master page into other pages that are locale aware.
4. The included content will be able to know which locale to apply on the translation helper __ calls as a $current_locale.

/source
    /_pages
        index.blade.php
        contact.blade.php
        ...
    /fr
        index.blade.php
        contact.blade.php
        ...
    index.blade.php
    contact.blade.php
    ...

// Both /source/index.blade.php and /source/fr/index.blade.php
@include('_pages.index')

Helpers

IMPORTANT: All the following helpers will try to resolve the locale code from the path if needed!

Setting baseUrl in the config is essential if your site root URL isn't 'domain.com/index.html'

current_path_locale

Returns the current page locale deduced from its path.

current_path_locale($page) // ar | es | fr-CA | haw-US

Usage example:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="{{ current_path_locale($page) }}">
    <head>
    <!-- ... -->

translate_path

When you have a page that is available in many locales. translate_path helps you get the equivalent translated path.

translate_path($page, $target_locale)

input/output examples:

current path	translated path	current_locale to target_locale
"/"	"/fr"	default -> fr
"/contact"	"/fr/contact"	default -> fr
"/fr"	"/"	fr -> default
"/fr/contact"	"/contact"	fr -> default
"/es/contact"	"/fr-CA/contact"	es -> fr-CA
"/es"	"/fr-CA"	es -> fr-CA

Usage example:

<nav>
    @foreach(['en', 'es', 'fr'] as $locale)
        <a href="{{ translate_path($page, $locale) }}"> {{ $locale }} </a>
    @endforeach
</nav>

translate_url

Just like the translate_path helper, but it prepends the baseUrl if set in the config.

translate_url($page, $target_locale)

locale_path

To avoid hard coding the current_locale into paths, input only the partial path that comes after the locale code part into this helper and it will handle the rest for you.

locale_path($page, $partial_path)

$partial_path	current_locale	href
"/"	DEFAULT	"/"
"/"	"fr"	"/fr"
"/contact"	DEFAULT	"/contact"
"/contact"	"fr"	"/fr/contact"

locale_url

Just like the locale_path helper, but it prepends the baseUrl if set in the config.

locale_url($page, $partial_path)

Live test

Wanna see a project that is up and running with this library? checkout this repo

TODO

• Test behavior with non A-Z languages.
• Add a router with named routes
  • Allow custom route patterns (for example set /blog/{locale}/)

Contributing

Any help is very welcomed, feel free to fork and PR :)