GhostReader is an alternative I18n backend which makes use of the GhostWriter service (https://github.com/branch14/ghost_writer).

gem 'ghost_reader'

unless Rails.env.test?
  config = {
    :report_interval => 42, # secs
    :retrieval_interval => 23, # secs
    :fallback => I18n.backend,
    :logfile => File.join(Rails.root, %w(log ghostwriter.log)),
    :service => {
      :api_key => '<here_goes_your_api_key>'
    }
  }
  
  I18n.backend = GhostReader::Backend.new(config)
end

• 'report interval' is the delay in seconds between subsequent POST requests (reporting requests), which report missing translations.
• 'retrieval_interval' is the delay in seconds between subsequent GET requests (incremental requests), which retrieve updated translations.
• 'fallback' point to the I18n backend wich should be used as a fallback.
• 'logfile' is the path to a optional, separate logfile. If this is omitted, log messages go to standard out.
• 'service' holds a hash with connection details.
  • 'api_key' is a GhostWriter API key.
  • 'host' is the hostname, optionally with port.
  • 'protocol' is either 'http' or 'https'
  • 'uri' is the complete uri with the folling keys, which will be replaced: :protocol, :host, :api_key

In a live system you typically don't want to depend on another system, so we'll just go with a static export of translations.

# specify where to get the static file from
echo 'static: https://<ghostservice>/system/static/<apikey>.yml' >> config/ghost_reader.yml

# in a cron job do this
rake ghost_reader:poll

The rake task will rewrite config/locales/ghost_reader.yml if it changed and touch tmp/restart.txt to make passenger restart the application.

It's a good idea to delete all other translations files on this system.

• implement counting, for statistics
• document all config options

All work on GhostReader is supported by Panter LLC, Zurich, Switzerland. http://panter.ch

Special thanks go to Andreas Koenig, for his inital version of GhostReader, and Peco Danajlovski for helping with the rewrite.