Ruby on Rails project goes local

Ruby on Rails now includes a full-on internationalisation framework

The open-source Ruby on Rails web development project has announced the release of Ruby on Rails 2.2, promising much easier localisation.

Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson said in a blog posting that the new release contains a "long list of fixes, improvements and additions that will make everything smoother and better".

"The most important is that Rails now includes a full-on internationalisation framework that is pre-wired from start," he added.

Rails 2.2 ships with a simple internationalisation framework that makes it easy to do translations and locales, according to Hansson. A number of accompanying social networking facilities have also been released to help developers get to grips with the new additions.

"There's a dedicated discussion group, wiki and web site for getting familiar with this work. I've been using it in a test translating Basecamp to Danish and really like what I'm seeing," said Hansson.

Although many of the international features were available before, this is the first time they have been bundled together and presented in a format that is designed to be easy to use and manage.

"It was long a point of contention that Rails didn't ship with a internationalisation framework in the box. There has, however, long been a wide variety of plug-ins that added this support," Hansson said.

"There was localise, globalise and many others, each with their own strengths and tailored to different situations. But obviously things could be better, and with Rails 2.2 we've made them a whole lot more so."