How do you make a translation field sluggable in CakePHP 3.x - php

Question

if you ever encountered a problem, when you cannot issue a sluggable behavior on a translated field, I feel ya.
Whenever you save a translation for an entity, 'slug' property is omitted because it's not dirty in the time of saving the translation entity.
You save an entity.
Translations are being created.
The table for i18n has no sluggable behavior attached, so it does not know, when to issue a sluggable behavior on a translated field like title / name etc.

Answer 1

I think I've found a better solution:
In my SluggableBehavior class, I've updated the behavior to include translations too:
public function beforeSave(Event $event, EntityInterface $entity) {
$this->slug($entity);
if($entity->get('_translations')) {
foreach($entity->get('_translations') as $key=>$translation) {
$this->slug($translation);
}
}
}
Of course, simply as it can be, it does not need a separate table :-) But thanks #ndm.

Answer 2

You can create and use a concrete table class for the translation table, where you can then create the slugs.
By default the name that the translate behavior uses for looking up table classes is I18n, so if you want this to apply to all translated tables, create App\Model\Table\I18nTable, or if you want this to apply to specific translated tables only, create a separate database translation table and class, and configure the translate behavior accordingly via the translationTable option:
// looks up `App\Model\Table\CustomI18nTable`
'translationTable' => 'CustomI18n'
See also
Cookbook > Database Access & ORM > Behaviors > Translate > Using a Separate Translations Table

Answer 3

Solution I think of might be and it's tested:
you specify a protected property in your entity, like:
protected $_sluggable = 'title';
then you create a getter:
public function _getSluggableField() {
return $this->_sluggable;
}
as soon as you do that you need to update the vendor file:
vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/ORM/Behavior/TranslateBehavior.php
and change:
foreach ($translations as $lang => $translation) {
foreach ($fields as $field) {
if (!$translation->isDirty($field)) {
continue;
}
$find[] = ['locale' => $lang, 'field' => $field, 'foreign_key' => $key];
$contents[] = new Entity(['content' => $translation->get($field)], [
'useSetters' => false
]);
}
}
to:
foreach ($translations as $lang => $translation) {
foreach ($fields as $field) {
if($field==='slug' && (method_exists($entity, '_getSluggableField') && $entity->_getSluggableField())) {
$translation->set('slug', \Cake\Utility\Text::slug($translation->get($entity->_getSluggableField())));
}
if (!$translation->isDirty($field)) {
continue;
}
$find[] = ['locale' => $lang, 'field' => $field, 'foreign_key' => $key];
$contents[] = new Entity(['content' => $translation->get($field)], [
'useSetters' => false
]);
}
}
I hope someone has a better solution. But this one works as a charm.