Configuration

The config file app/config/packages/laravel-translation-manager/config.php has comments that provide a description for each option. Note that when admin_enabled is set to false then translation management is limited to editing existing translations all other operations have to be done through the command line. Ideally, this option needs to be dynamic based on user privileges so that translators cannot delete translations or administer translations but admins can. See Installation: step 8.

By default the primary locale is en. The primary locale determines what language is used for the source text for the translate button in the edit pop-up and can be changed in the web interface for the current session. When editing the text for the primary locale a button in the edit pop-up allows you to convert the text of the key to a default value (change . - _ to spaces, capitalize first letter of each word) that way you can generate descent placeholder text to continue development and replace it with more meaningful value later.

By default the configuration will load all translations found in the standard Laravel locations. In the table below {vendor}, {package}, {locale}, {group} are placeholders for their corresponding values referring to vendor name, package name, locale string and translation group. The translation group will consist of optional sub-directory tree and the file name, allowing you to organize your translation files.

Location Description
/resources/lang/{locale}/{group}.php
Standard project translation files
/resources/lang/vendor/{package}/{locale}/{group}
Package translation override files.
/workbench/{vendor}/{package}/resources/lang/{locale}/{group}
Translation files for packages that you are developing in the current project. Laravel 4.2 style but the directory layout updated to version 5 standard. These will have a group prefix of wbn: in the database and web interface to distinguish them from the standard Laravel package namespaces.
/vendor/{vendor}/{package}/resources/lang/{locale}/{group}
Translation files for packages that are dependents of your project. By default no translation files are loaded from this section. You will need to edit the configuration file for the 'vendor' section and list the packages you want to include in the 'include' array in the form 'vendor/package'. These will have a group prefix of vnd: in the database and web interface to distinguish them from the standard Laravel package namespaces

The default configuration file also has entries for two packages whose translation files' location and naming convention does not follow Laravel conventions and require more tweaking to allow import/export of their language files. These non-standard layouts can only be included in the wbn: or vnd: prefixed namespaces.

Modifying the default Views

If you published the views to your project in Installation: step 11 then you can customize them to your liking. The package view directory also contains a layouts/master.blade.php file for a default layout. The intent is for you to provide your own master layout that the index.blade.php will extend so it can match your site's style.

Setting up alternate database connections

If you want to be able to access multiple databases for the translation manager from one set of language files you can configure the db_connections option in the config file. Here is what I use to access the production server's translations from my local development environment:

    /**
     * @type array      list of alternate database connections with 
     *                  their properties indexed by app()->environment() value,
     *                  default connection settings are taken from config, 
     *                  so only add alternate connections
     *
     *                  description is used to display the connection name, 
     *                  default connection is displayed as 'default' in
     *                  the web interface.
     */
    'db_connections' => array(
        'local' => array(
            'mysql_prd' => array(
                'description' => 'production',
                'indatabase_publish' => 2,
            ),
        ),
    ),

The option is an array of environment names which in turn contain database connection names which list the options to use for that connection.

description
: the string to use in the web interface combo box to represent this connection. If the description is empty or missing then the connection name will be used.

indatabase_publish
: the setting for indatabase_publish to use for this connection. If this option is missing then the global configuration indatabase_publish will be used. Setting this value to 2, will write to the local translation files but leave the database in a state to serve changed translations from the cache. Note that with indatabase_publish set to 1 or 2 publishing will not reset the changed flag for translations and these will continue to show up in the dashboard as changed.

• After updating the remote translations you need to go into translations page on the remote server and do a publish all so that either the files or the cache is updated with new translations.

• After deploying a new version of the application, with updated translation files on the servers, you should do an Import with Only add new translations. This will import any new translations and reset the cache.