Mako Internationalization

Note

This recipe is extracted, with permission, from a blog post made by Alexandre Bourget.

First, add subscribers within your Pyramid project’s __init__.py:

def main(...):
    ...
    config.add_subscriber('YOURPROJECT.subscribers.add_renderer_globals',
                          'pyramid.events.BeforeRender')
    config.add_subscriber('YOURPROJECT.subscribers.add_localizer',
                          'pyramid.events.NewRequest')

Then add, a subscribers.py module to your project’s package directory:

# subscribers.py

from pyramid.i18n import get_localizer, TranslationStringFactory

def add_renderer_globals(event):
    ...
    request = event['request']
    event['_'] = request.translate
    event['localizer'] = request.localizer

tsf = TranslationStringFactory('YOUR_GETTEXT_DOMAIN')

def add_localizer(event):
    request = event.request
    localizer = get_localizer(request)
    def auto_translate(*args, **kwargs):
        return localizer.translate(tsf(*args, **kwargs))
    request.localizer = localizer
    request.translate = auto_translate

After this has been done, the next time you start your application, in your Mako template, you’ll be able to use the simple ${_(u"Translate this string please")} without having to use get_localizer explicitly, as its functionality will be enclosed in the _ function, which will be exposed as a top-level template name. localizer will also be available for plural forms and fancy stuff.

This will also allow you to use translation in your view code, using something like:

def my_view(request):
    _ = request.translate
    request.session.flash(_("Welcome home"))

For all that to work, you’ll need to:

(env)$ easy_install Babel

And you’ll also need to run these commands in your project’s directory:

(env)$ python setup.py extract_messages
(env)$ python setup.py init_catalog -l en
(env)$ python setup.py init_catalog -l fr
(env)$ python setup.py init_catalog -l es
(env)$ python setup.py init_catalog -l it
(env)$ python setup.py update_catalog
(env)$ python setup.py compile_catalog

Repeat the init_catalog step for each of the langauges you need.

Note

The gettext sub-directory of your project is locale/ in Pyramid, and not i18n/ as it was in Pylons. You’ll notice that in the default setup.cfg of a Pyramid project.

At this point you’ll also need to add your local directory to your project’s configuration:

def main(...):
   ...
   config.add_translation_dirs('YOURPROJECT:locale')

Lastly, you’ll want to have your Mako files extracted when you run extract_messages, so add these to your setup.py (yes, you read me right, in setup.py so that Babel can use it when invoking it’s commands):

setup(
    ...
    install_requires=[
        ...
        Babel,
        ...
        ],
    message_extractors = {'yourpackage': [
            ('**.py', 'python', None),
            ('templates/**.html', 'mako', None),
            ('templates/**.mako', 'mako', None),
            ('static/**', 'ignore', None)]},
    ...
    )