Dynamic input generation with Zend_Form - php

Question

Good morning,
I have a multilingual backend application which has to support n languages.
The languages are stored in a database and can be added at any moment.
Now for my backend functionality, I need to dynamically generate <input> fields based on the languages stored in my db, for example:
German: <input type="text" id="title_de">
English <input type="text" id="title_en">
Italian <input type="text" id="title_it">
...
I currently add them like this using Zend_Form:
foreach($languages as $language){
$title = new Zend_Form_Element_Text("title_" . $language->getPrefix());
$title->setLabel("Title " . $language->getPrefix())
->setRequired(true)
$this->addElements(array($title));
}
And this is how I save the fields to my DB using Doctrine:
//get language-dependent title and write to DB
foreach($languages as $language){
$title->setLanguage($language);
$title->setContent($form->getValue("title_" . $language->getPrefix()));
$touristArea->addTitle($title);
//persist and flush
$em->persist($touristArea);
$em->flush();
}
Anyway, as I have many language dependent fields (Titles, Captions, etc.), the code to process the form can get quite nasty and I always have to query the language table in my DB in order to know what inputs have been generated.
Is there a better way to do this? Like with an array of inputs or something like that? Thanks for any inputs :)

Answer 1

I suggest you to use Zend_Translate component
First of all create source file with translations ->
Creating Array source files
Array source files are plain arrays. But you have to define them manually since there is no tool to aid this. But because they are so simple, it's the fastest way to look up messages if your code works as expected. It's generally the best adapter to get started with translation business.
$english = array(
'message1' => 'message1',
'message2' => 'message2',
'message3' => 'message3');
$german = array(
'message1' => 'Nachricht1',
'message2' => 'Nachricht2',
'message3' => 'Nachricht3');
$translate = new Zend_Translate(
array(
'adapter' => 'array',
'content' => $english,
'locale' => 'en'
)
);
$translate->addTranslation(array('content' => $german, 'locale' => 'de'));
Since release 1.5 it is also supported to have arrays included within an external file. You just have to provide the filename and Zend_Translate will automatically include it and look for the array. See the following page for more info about source files
Then take a look for Internationalization of Zend_Form
In order to initialize I18n in forms, you will need either a Zend_Translate object or a Zend_Translate_Adapter object, as detailed in the Zend_Translate documentation. Once you have a translation object, you can attach a translator to a specific form instance or to specific elements using their setTranslator() methods:
// Tell *this* form instance to use a specific translate adapter; it
// will also be used to translate validation error messages for all
// elements:
$form->setTranslator($translate);
// Tell *this* element to use a specific translate adapter; it will
// also be used to translate validation error messages for this
// particular element:
$element->setTranslator($translate);
Detailed guide is here