How to manage translations for your object using SonataAdminBundle

Many of us asked themselves how to add dynamically translations to I18n fields - object using SonataAdminBundle and DoctrineExtensions.

Thanks to Gedmo and his wonderful DoctrineExtensions on which he added a feature called "Personal Translations" that simplifies the whole translation management process.

Before starting here's what i am using :

• Symfony 2.1-DEV
• Doctrine & Doctrine deps (master branch)
• DoctrineExtensions ( >= 2.3 tag)
• StofDoctrineExtensionsBundle (master branch)
• TranslationFormBundle

We will not configure the DoctrineExtensions & the StofDoctrineExtensionsBundle together, so please, check that it's all configured (read the readme on github repos) and working.

Before starting, let's configure the Bundle :

# Add the bundle to your composer

    "a2lix/translation-form-bundle" : "dev-master"

# Enable the Bundle in the AppKernel.php

    new A2lix\TranslationFormBundle\A2lixTranslationFormBundle(),

# Configure the Bundle in the config.yml

    a2lix_translation_form:
        default_locale: en                  # [Optionnal] Default to 'en'
        locales: [fr, es, de]               # [Optionnal] Array of translations locales. Can be specified in the form.
        default_required: false             # [Optionnal] Default to false. In this case, translation fields are not mark as required with html5

# Template
    twig:
        form:
            resources:
                - 'A2lixTranslationFormBundle::form.html.twig'

Let's begin with our Category entity :

<?php

namespace AwesomeNamespace\AwesomeBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection;
use Gedmo\Mapping\Annotation as Gedmo;

/**
 * AwesomeNamespace\AwesomeBundle\Entity\Profile
 *
 * @ORM\Table(name="profile")
 * @ORM\Entity
 * @Gedmo\TranslationEntity(class="AwesomeNamespace\AwesomeBundle\Entity\ProfileTranslation")
 */
class Profile
{
    /**
     * @ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
     */
    protected $id;

    /**
     * @Gedmo\Translatable
     * @ORM\Column(name="name", type="string", length=255)
     */
    protected $name;

    /**
     * @var text $description
     * @Gedmo\Translatable
     * @ORM\Column(name="description", type="text")
     */
    protected $description;

    /**
     * @ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="ProfileTranslation", mappedBy="object", cascade={"persist", "remove"})
     */
    protected $translations;

    /**
     * Required for Translatable behaviour
     * @Gedmo\Locale
     */
    protected $locale;

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->translations = new ArrayCollection;
    }

    /**
     * Get id
     *
     * @return integer
     */
    public function getId()
    {
        return $this->id;
    }

    public function getLocale()
    {
        return $this->locale;
    }

    public function setLocale($locale)
    {
        $this->locale = $locale;
    }

    public function setName($name)
    {
        $this->name = $name;
    }

    public function getName()
    {
        return $this->name;
    }

    public function setDescription($description)
    {
        $this->description = $description;
    }

    public function getDescription()
    {
        return $this->description;
    }

    public function getTranslations()
    {
        return $this->translations;
    }

    public function addTranslation(ProfileTranslation $t)
    {
        $this->translations->add($t);
        $t->setObject($this);
    }

    public function removeTranslation(ProfileTranslation $t)
    {
        $this->translations->removeElement($t);
    }

    public function setTranslations($translations)
    {
        $this->translations = $translations;
    }

    public function __toString()
    {
        return $this->getName();
    }

}

And our CategoryTranslation entity (to store translations)

<?php

namespace AwesomeNamespace\AwesomeBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Gedmo\Translatable\Entity\MappedSuperclass\AbstractPersonalTranslation;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity
 * @ORM\Table(name="profile_translations",
 *     uniqueConstraints={@ORM\UniqueConstraint(name="lookup_unique_idx", columns={
 *         "locale", "object_id", "field"
 *     })}
 * )
 */
class ProfileTranslation extends AbstractPersonalTranslation
{
    /**
     * Convinient constructor
     *
     * @param string $locale
     * @param string $field
     * @param string $content
     */
    public function __construct($locale = null, $field = null, $content = null)
    {
        $this->setLocale($locale);
        $this->setField($field);
        $this->setContent($content);
    }

    /**
     * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="Profile", inversedBy="translations")
     * @ORM\JoinColumn(name="object_id", referencedColumnName="id", onDelete="CASCADE")
     */
    protected $object;
}

Finally, the CategoryAdmin class

<?php

namespace AwesomeNamespace\AwesomeBundle\Admin;

use Sonata\AdminBundle\Admin\Admin;
use Sonata\AdminBundle\Form\FormMapper;
use Sonata\AdminBundle\Datagrid\ListMapper;

/**
 * Profile Admin
 */
class ProfileAdmin extends Admin
{

    /**
     * Configure the list
     *
     * @param \Sonata\AdminBundle\Datagrid\ListMapper $list list
     */
    protected function configureListFields(ListMapper $list)
    {
        $list
            ->addIdentifier('name', null, array('label' => 'Name'))
            ->add('description', null, array('label' => 'Description'));
    }

    /**
     * Configure the form
     *
     * @param FormMapper $formMapper formMapper
     */
    public function configureFormFields(FormMapper $formMapper)
    {
        $formMapper
            ->add('translations', 'a2lix_translations', array(
                'by_reference' => false,
                'locales' => array('fr', 'en'))
        );
    }

}

You wanna see the result ? Well, you are free to propose a gist in the comment section of this article if you want to add code to render more nicely the translations in SonataAdminBundle (display the locale of the field, split the fields in tab....)

EDIT The Bundle has been updated and now has a splitted view and tabbed view per locale.

So what does the bundle TranslationFormBundle ?

It'll grab all the fields tagged with the Translatable via its listener, then it'll read the properties annotations in order to add in your form all the fields with the right type (string / text). You have to specify an array of locales

So Have Fun translating your objects into the AdminBundle, and we can say thank you to a2lix who made this usefull, yet uknown Bundle.

You can find another example, on how to Translate your object in a form, (but outside the SonataAdminBundle) on the owner repo here.