Lighthouse Translatable

This package will make generation of GraphQL types for translatable type definitions a breeze. It ships the @translatable directive, which can be applied to any GraphQL type definition.

The directive will look for any attributes of the TranslatableString scalar type, also included in this package, and include it in the types it generates. It will respect nullable states of attributes when generating the type definitions.

The directive can generate two types of GraphQL types, based off the main type the directive gets applied to:

• A translation type: an individual type definition containing all the attributes that are translatable, along with its locale
• An input type: an input definition, containing all the attributes that are translatable, along with its locale

Installation

The package can be installed through composer.

composer require dennis-koster/lighthouse-translatable

Package compatibility

The package is completely agnostic of any translations package you might use for saving and retrieving translations to and from the database. This package focuses solely on generating schema definitions.

Its only dependency is on nuwave/lighthouse version 6 or higher.

Arguments

The directive comes with a couple of arguments, all of them optional.

Argument	Description	Default
generateTranslationType	Whether or not to generate a type for the translation definition.	Boolean: True
translationTypeName	The name of the type to be generated for the translation definition.	String: <BaseType>Translation
translationsFieldName	The name of the field that holds the array of translations.	String: translations
translationsInputName	The name of the input that holds the array of translations inputs.	String: translations
generateInputType	Whether or not to generate a type for the translation input definition.	Boolean: True
inputTypeName	The name of the type to be generated for the translation input definition.	String: <BaseType>TranslationInput
appendInput	The inputs the translation model input should be appended to.	Array: []

The default values for the arguments may be altered through the publishable config file.

Basic usage

In its most primal form, the directive uses some sensible defaults. It will always generate a translation definition and a translation input definition for the type the directive is applied to.

It will take the name of the base type, in the example below NewsItem and append Translation (so NewsItemTranslation) for the translation definition, and TranslationInput for the translation input definition (NewsItemTranslationInput).

An attribute will be added to the base type definition, holding the translation definitions. By default, the attribute will be called translations but this is customizable through the translationsAttribute argument.

type NewsItem @translatable
{
    id: ID!
    title: TranslatableString!
    introduction: TranslatableString
}

# Will result in the following schema definition
type NewsItem
{
    id: ID!
    title: TranslatableString!
    introduction: TranslatableString
    translations: [NewsItemTranslation!]! # Added through the directive
}

type NewsItemTranslation {
    locale: String!
    title: String!
    introduction: String
}

input NewsItemTranslationInput {
    locale: String!
    title: String!
    introduction: String
}

Append input type to existing inputs

It's possible to provide the directive an array of existing inputs you want to append a translations argument to, through the appendInput argument.

The attribute will be called translations by default, and can be changed through the translationsAttribute argument.

type NewsItem @translatable(appendInput: ["CreateNewsItemInput"])
{
    id: ID!
    slug: String!
    title: TranslatableString!
    introduction: TranslatableString
}

input CreateNewsItemInput {
    slug: String!
}

# Will append the translations attribute to the CreateNewsItemInput
input CreateNewsItemInput {
    slug: String!
    translations: [NewsItemTranslationInput!]!
}

Customize type names and attribute name

It's possible to customize the names of the type definitions that are generated, as well as the name of the attribute it appends to existing type definitions.

type NewsItem @translatable(
    translationTypeName: "FooBarTranslation"
    inputTypeName: "FooBarTranslationInput"
    translationsAttribute: "localizations"
    appendInput: ["CreateNewsItemInput"]
) {
    id: ID!
    title: TranslatableString!
    introduction: TranslatableString
}

input CreateNewsItemInput {
    slug: String!
}

# Will result in the following schema definition
type NewsItem
{
    id: ID!
    title: TranslatableString!
    introduction: TranslatableString
    localizations: [FooBarTranslation!]!
}

input CreateNewsItemInput {
    slug: String!
    localizations: [FooBarTranslationInput!]!
}

type FooBarTranslation {
    locale: String!
    title: String!
    introduction: String
}

input FooBarTranslationInput {
    locale: String!
    title: String!
    introduction: String
}

Configuration

The directive comes with a configuration file that can be published through:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider=DennisKoster\\LighthouseTranslatable\\Providers\\LighthouseTranslatableProvider

Through the configuration file, all the default values for the directive may be adjusted to your liking.

View stubs

The generated types are created using blade views. These blade views can also be published and adjusted to your needs.

Blade view overview

type NewsItem @translatable(appendInput: ["CreateNewsItemInput"])
{
    id: ID!
    title: TranslatableString!
    introduction: TranslatableString
}

input CreateNewsItemInput {
    slug: String!
}

# Will result in the following schema definition
type NewsItem
{
    id: ID!
    title: TranslatableString!
    introduction: TranslatableString
    translations: [NewsItemTranslation!]! # translations-field.blade.php
}

input CreateNewsItemInput {
    slug: String!
    translations: [NewsItemTranslationInput!]! # translations-input.blade.php
}

type NewsItemTranslation {
    locale: String! # translatable-attribute-field.blade.php
    title: String! # translatable-attribute-field.blade.php
    introduction: String # translatable-attribute-field.blade.php
}

input NewsItemTranslationInput {
    locale: String! # translatable-attribute-input.blade.php
    title: String! # translatable-attribute-input.blade.php
    introduction: String # translatable-attribute-input.blade.php
}