How to create an i18n-able link?

saveman71

Hello!

I want to generate HTML that would be similar to:

English:

Hello, Please click here to learn more !

French:

Bonjour, Veuillez cliquez ici pour en apprendre plus !

My best attempt:

<%= raw(
  gettext(
    "Hello! Please %{link} to learn more!",
    link: gettext("click here") |> link(to: path) |> safe_to_string()
  )
) %>

But the usage of raw and safe_to_string, the nested gettext really make me wonder if I’m in the right direction. The translation is also unfortunately split into 2, making the translation job harder.

I also thought about embedding the link inside the translation, like below:

<%= raw(
  gettext(
    "Hello! Please <a href=\"%{link}\">click here</a> to learn more!",
    link: path
  )
) %>

First we still need to use raw and now we have HTML in the translations making the whole thing very brittle, and we have to escape the link, we don’t use the native component…

The naive way of doing (below) feels worse because the translation is now split in 3 (think about a paragraph with 2, 3, links), making the translation job even harder.

<%= gettext("Hello! Please") %> <%= link(gettext("click here"), to: path) %> <%= gettext("to learn more!") %>

How do you guys do it? All three options work, but neither feels just right.

15 comments

/phoenix #phoenix_html #gettext

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2023-11-21 10:01:36 UTC

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saveman71

For posterity, here’s some insight on Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/q/273847/236784 since this might not be so Elixir specific.

Post #1

Cochonours

I was curious as I haven’t done i18n with gettext in a looong time, but here are some better options IMHO : Gettext html in translation - #3 by danschultzer

  <%= gettext("Already have an account? %{sign_in} to continue", sign_in: safe_to_string(link(gettext("Sign in"), to: Routes.session_path(@conn, :new)))) |> raw() %>

No html in the strings, and all in one place.

Post #2

saveman71

Thanks for finding that post! I’m a bit ashamed that I wasn’t able to find it myself

I thought of that option, and it works quite well if the source language is English (same language as the interpolation key).

In my case, the source language is French (and I am not in a position to change that). So the solution becomes:

<%= gettext("Vous avez déjà un compte ? %{sign_in} pour continuer", sign_in: safe_to_string(link(gettext("Connectez-vous"), to: Routes.session_path(@conn, :new)))) |> raw() %>

It’s less ideal, but works. I’m still not 100% convinced because the two translation strings are not so connected (hard for the translator to make the connection between the two, in the middle of 100s of other strings).

Maybe we can make an exception and use French only for these keys?

<%= gettext("Vous avez déjà un compte ? %{connectez_vous} pour continuer", connectez_vous: safe_to_string(link(gettext("Connectez-vous"), to: Routes.session_path(@conn, :new)))) |> raw() %>

So given all these compromises, I also consider the following solution:

<%= gettext("Vous avez déjà un compte ? %{a_start}Connectez-vous%{a_end} pour continuer", a_start: "<a href='/login'>", a_end: "</a>") |> raw() %>

Unfortunately:

it’s very brittle
we can’t use link/2 anymore
if we have multiple links, it starts to be even more brittle (a1_start, a2_start, etc. no good solution)

Compromises

Post #3

LostKobrakai

That’s exactly the issue here. Translation tools aren’t well suited for allowing the translation of segmented text without adding the details about the segmentation into the translatable text. This becomes even more tricky if the translation might reorder links (when multiple ones) in which case you actually require something in the translated text to map to the correct link.

Doing that with less compromises would likely require a new dataformat for doing translations with, which explicitly supports this usecase.

Post #4

benwilson512

Author of Craft GraphQL APIs in Elixir with Absinthe

There are a lot of good answers here, so I’ll just throw my $0.02 in and note that perhaps a different design would make this easier? What you have is basically a “call to action”, and calls to action work better when they are pulled out from the actual text and are visually represented in a more emphatic way like a button. This happens to also make the translation easier since you aren’t doing an inline link.

Post #5

saveman71

TBH I crafted these examples because they were easy to understand, it’s a good point though, when possible taking the link out is good practice!

But for example, there are two good examples on this page only:

(and that last one can have multiple links too!)

Post #6

odd

I found this article very useful when dealing with HTML in translations
https://angelika.me/2021/11/23/7-gettext-lessons-after-2-years/

Post #7

kip

ex_cldr Core Team

@saveman71, As is often the case Unicode has a slightly different take that is, I think more suited to complete language expressions. Its the Unicode Message Format and I have an implementation of it in ex_cldr_messages.

After the great work done by @maennchen, the latest versions of gettext fully supports merging those messages into a .po file just like any other message type (little know fact that .po files are independent of the message type, its just that gettext messages predominate).

Its possible this a better fit for your needs and if so, let me know and I’m happy to help.

Post #8

LostKobrakai

I recently looked into ICU messages for exactly the reasons discussed and it also doesn’t really have an answer for it, even though there’s a lot of powerful stuff in them. It’s still build to handle a string of text – even though with a lot more gramatical/language related options – but it’s not really better in handling formatted text or text interspersed with other types of markup.

Post #9