Yii2 best practices translating dynamic content - yii2

Can anyone share own experience and best practices implementing multilingual sites with Yii2? I want translate user input that is stored in database. For example article, that may have its name in three different languages, body and some translatable attributes as well.
Does Yii2 have built in features to translate the dynamic content? Or should I use third party extensions like these ones below:
https://github.com/creocoder/yii2-translateable
https://github.com/LAV45/yii2-translated-behavior
https://github.com/lajax/yii2-translate-manager
Your help would be appreciated.

Well, I can give you my point of view only based on what I have done.
There are to places to work translation
The non dynamic strings managed with i18n and messages system from
yii, that will help you with static content.
Working the translated routes dynamically with a bootstrapped class, that allows you to build this routs when the app is built.
And working with tables that have columns that support the translation like 'title_en, title_es', and as many as you need to translate. Actually in your admin interface you may want to use something like yandex to help you translating the content to this fields.
Now I will explain:
The i18n Message Translation is based on translating strings in your views, models, and in some cases like on the bootstrapped class.
You will en using Yii::t('app/main', 'Your name is {0}' as an example to translate strings that are stored on message php files.
Now if you translate stings you will want to translate the routes so you will en with routes like /articles and /articulos when you change the language.
for this purpose you will like to build a class that implements BootstrapInterface and that will be called from the process of bootstrapping your app.
So this is an example of my settings.php that I use for this
namespace app\base;
use Yii;
use yii\base\BootstrapInterface;
class settings implements BootstrapInterface {
public function __construct() { }
public function bootstrap($app) {
/// Dynamic translated routes
$t_articles = Yii::t('app/route', 'articles');
$app->getUrlManager()->addRules([
'/'.$t_articles => '/articles',
], false);
}
}
And remember to bootstrap the class in your config file «i.e. web.php»
'bootstrap' => [
'log',
'app\base\settings',
],
And finally to translate text from the database you may want to make a table that supports the translated text like:
CREATE TABLE articles (
id INT,
title_en VARCHAR(20),
title_es VARCHAR(20)
);
So when you call your app you can pull your data using something like the following on the action (only a simple example):
$articles = ArticlesA::find()->where(['id' => 1])->one();
$lang = $this->module->language;
return $thi
s->render('index',['articles'=>$articles, 'lang'=>$lang]);
or in the view as:
<p class="lead"><?=$articles['title_'.$lang]?></p>
I hope this explains the way I have been translating my apps.

Use a Google translator API or Yandex API to for smooth translations for multiple languages.
Few links that i have found on git
https://github.com/borodulin/yii2-i18n-google
Tutorial
RichWeber/yii2-google-translate-api
Google Api is a paid service however you can get free credit for 12 months if your a first time user

Related

How to design correctly a web app in sails.js?

I build a web app using sails.js and I have few questions about the design of the app:
Should I create controllers for each page, component, or model? I saw in the documentation and at some tutorials that they create controllers for each model. That looks nice but if I have a complex page/component and I want to create view with multi models (and data) it doesn't help me.
Where should I put the business logic part of a component or feature? I read about Serivce but I'm not sure that this is the right place.
To sum up, I saw that in sails the code is arranged like the models (you have model, controller and view for each model) but what if I want to arrange it by features or components or pages?
Thanks!
Basically you should have Controller for each Model (but if you don't need specific controller and it would be empty you don't need to create it). It's just a good practice to have a Controller for each Model.
If you use some part of code in many places and it is not connected with one specified Model it should be Service (like sending emails, notifications, logging, images processing). Read about DRY
Controller should be as simple as possible. It should contain call of Model and Service and callback with rendering output. All business logic should be in Models.
I created some additional 'helper' Models for more complex Models like Users or so to make Classes bit shorter.
To sum up. Core of your application is Model. It's not only responsible for database layer, bur also business layer of your app. Later there is Controller. It gets data from Model and it passes it to Views which is responsible for presentation of data taken from Model.
Answer to First
Sails is for REST API it has nothing to do with view.
you just need to know what MVC is and what REST is....
In one Controller you can invoke multiple models or one model can be invoked in multiple controllers.
In one page you can fetch data from two different API's which may be from different controller or Even they can be of different server.
for Example:
In the page you are getting data directly from ellasticsearchAPI(say esAPI1)
You are getting data from sails API(sAPI1).
You are getting data from other sails API(sAPI2).
Answer to Second
For neatness you should try to keep controller as clean as possible. So for the same sailsJS provide you services. Where you can write Common functionalities which are to be used in multiple controllers.
See the codes for example
Codes
here is the controller:
//TestController
module.exports = {
action1:function(req,res){
Model1.find().exec(function(err,data1){
if(err)
return res.negotiate(err);
res.ok(data1);
});
},
action2:function(req,res){
Model2.find().exec(function(err,data1){
if(err)
return res.negotiate(err);
res.ok(data2);
});
},
action3:function(req,res){
var hash=SomeService.getMeHashCode(req.query.text)
res.ok({hashedData:hash});
}
};
And this is service.
//SomeService.js
module.exports = {
getMeHashCode:function(strinToBeHashed){
var hash=doSomeThingToHash(strinToBeHashed);
return hash;
}
};

Laravel Equivalent of passing variables to functions in codeigniter

I am using CodeIgniter from 2 years and i am trying to move to Laravel and I saw many tutorials of how to use Laravel but i couldn't find any answers to how to pass variables to functions using the URL and without using routes like in CodeIgniter if i called this link
site.com/users/edit/12.
I would be calling the users controller , the edit function and passing a variable of value 12
how can i do the same in Laravel without using routes for every single function or using query strings which will make the URL ugly?
Here is an example.Hope that it will be helpful.......
route.php
Route::controller('users','UsersController');
UsersController.php
class UsersController extends BaseController
{
public function getEdit($value)
{
echo $value;
}
}
url
site.com/users/edit/12
output
12
In Laravel - 3 you may do it using something like this:
Route::controller(Controller::detect());
But in later versions it's not available and you should explicitly declare the routes. Actually it's better to declare routes explicitly and this approach has many benefits too. This is a common problem that happens to developers who migrates from CodeIgniter but later they get motivated and if you use this you'll love this for sure.
You may read this article by Phil Sturgeon who was the man behind the CodeIgniter framework, he discussed about it's down sides of this (automatic routing).
If you are using Laravel - 4 then check the Controllers Manual, specially check out the RESTful and Resourceful controllers section, it may attract you but be familiar with explicit route declaration first.

How to reference to database from a CakePHP library

I've created a library class file in my CakePHP 2.0 app. It's a single PHP class called emailManager Which exists within a folder emailManager within CakePHP's libaray folder. I would love to know what is the simplest way to reference the database from this library class.
I would love to be able to do something like $this->AppModel->query("SELECT * FROM some_table_in_my_db"), that way I do not have to track DB configurations in separate places, but I'm not sure how to achieve this.
Also, I feel it is important to mention that the tables I am working with do not adhere to CakePHP table naming convention. They predate our use of CakePHP and so I cannot change my tables to fit CakePHP's model format. this is why I want generic database access via something like query
EDIT: I have constructed a temporary solution, but I know a better one is possible.
I have a model in my cake app called MySimpleConstuct and then in the library file I include the MySimpleConstruct Model as followed:
// import this model
$this->GivenModel = ClassRegistry::init('MySimpleConstruct');
$this->GivenModel = new MySimpleConstruct();
// Then it is possible to do as followed:
$table_data = $this->GivenModel->query('SELECT * FROM like_some_table_dude' WHERE 1);
This is not ideal so I still searching for a better solution.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
#John Galt, I suppose it's not an exact duplicate but it is very similar and the resolution does appear to apply to your situation very directly.
The other technique you could consider using would be to instantiate the Library in the controller and than give it a reference of the model.
class TestController extends AppController {
function index(){
App::uses('TheLibrary', 'Lib');
$obj = new TheLibrary();
$obj->GivenModel = &$this->GivenModel;
}
}
-EDIT-
And then within the library you've written do something like this.
class TheLibrary {
var $GivenModel = null;
function some_query(){
return $this->GivenModel->query('SELECT * FROM like_some_table_dude WHERE 1');
}
}
The first code snippet is of the Controller instantiating your library and then giving the library a reference to the Model as the property GivenModel. The "&" symbol makes the assignment a reference (see How does the '&' symbol in PHP affect the outcome?). The second code snippet is of a sample of how the library would use that property.
I do understand that you are trying to use a model from the library and that is what the solution you have in your edit and my proposed solution both do. However I will note again that this is not proper MVC convention and you should reconsider how you are using Libraries.

Associating an Object with other Objects and Properties of those Objects

I am looking for some help with designing some functionality in my application. I already have something similar designed but this problem is a little different.
Background:
In my application we have different Modules. Data in each module can be associated to other modules. Each Module is represented by an Object in our application.
Module 1 can be associated with Module 2 and Module 3. Currently I use a factory to provide the proper DAO for getting and saving this data.
It looks something like this:
class Module1Factory {
public static Module1BridgeDAO createModule1BridgeDAO(int moduleid) {
switch (moduleId)
{
case Module.Module2Id: return new Module1_Module2DAO();
case Module.Module3Id: return new Module1_Module3DAO();
default: return null;
}
}
}
Module1_Module2 and Module1_Module3 implement the same BridgeModule interface. In the database I have a Table for every module (Module1, Module2, Module3). I also have a bridge table for each module (they are many to many) Module1_Module2, Module1_Module3 etc.
The DAO basically handles all code needed to manage the association and retrieve its own instance data for the calling module. Now when we add new modules that associate with Module1 we simply implement the ModuleBridge interface and provide the common functionality.
New Development
We are adding a new module that will have the ability to be associated with other Modules as well as specific properties of that module. The module is basically providing the user the ability to add their custom forms to our other modules. That way they can collect additional information along with what we provide.
I want to start associating my Form module with other modules and their properties. Ie if Module1 has a property Category, I want to associate an instance From data with that property.
There are many Forms. If a users creates an instance of Module2, they may always want to also have certain form(s) attached to that Module2 instance. If they create an instance of Module2 and select Category 1, then I may want additional Form(s) created.
I prototyped something like this:
Form
FormLayout (contains the labels and gui controls)
FormModule (associates a form with all instances of a module)
Form Instance (create an instance of a form to be filled out)
As I thought about it I was thinking about making a new FormModule table/class/dao for each Module and Property that I add. So I might have:
FormModule1
FormModule1Property1
FormModule1Property2
FormModule1Property3
FormModule1Property4
FormModule2
FormModule3
FormModule3Property1
Then as I did previously, I would use a factory to get the proper DAO for dealing with all of these. I would hand it an array of ids representing different modules and properties and it would return all of the DAOs that I need to call getForms(). Which in turn would return all of the forms for that particular bridge.
Some points
This will be for a new module so I dont need to expand on the factory code I provided. I just wanted to show an example of what I have done in the past.
The new module can be associated with: Other Modules (ie globally for any instance of that module data), Other module properties (ie only if the Module instance has a certian value in one of its properties)
I want to make it easy for developers to add associations with other modules and properties easily
Can any one suggest any design patterns or strategy's for achieving this?
If anything is unclear please let me know.
Thank you,
Al
You can use springs Dependency Injection feature. This would help you achieve the flexibility of instantiating the objects using an xml configuration file.
So, my suggestion would be go with the Springs.

Mapping Linq-to-Sql entities to custom domain entities

How could I map my Linq-to-Sql generated entities (DTO’s) to my domain entities? The problem is that I can’t map the associations because they are not of the same type. The DTO’s uses EntitySet and EntityRef and my domain entities uses IList and T.
I’ve looked at some blog post: Ian Cooper's architecting-linq-to-sql-applications-part-5 and digital_ruminations linq-to-sql-poco-support but they don’t fit my needs. I like some kind of generic converter class to handle the mapping.
Now I do something like this:
public IList<Entities.Customer> GetAll()
{
try
{
return _custConverter.Convert(base.GetEntities());
}
But the Convert method only converts the basic properties not the associations.
Any ideas how I can do this the best way?
You might want to look into AutoMapper. It does a great job of mapping properties automatically out of the box and supports extensive customization, such as custom converters, which I think could be used to make Lists out of your EntitySets.
Update:
The official project site and compiled releases are found in CodePlex (same link as above).
Code is SVN hosted at Google Code
Discussiong group is hosted at Google Groups
Accouncement and overview of features at Jimmy Bogart's blog post