Dynamic I18n labels in Active Admin filters render as Proc objects instead of translated strings #8718

bbasanta238 · 2025-05-10T13:17:29Z

bbasanta238
May 10, 2025

Active Admin Version: [3.3]
Rails Version: [ 7.2]

Description:
The label for a filter in Active Admin, when attempting to be dynamically translated using either a Proc or a lambda (->) that calls I18n.t, does not update dynamically when the application's locale is changed at runtime. Instead of the translated string, the raw Proc or lambda object is rendered as the filter label in the user interface until the Rails server is restarted.

Steps to Reproduce:
Using a Proc:

ActiveAdmin.register Item do
  filter :status, as: :select, collection: Item.statuses.keys,
         label: proc { I18n.t("activerecord.attributes.item.status") }
end

Using a Lambda:

ActiveAdmin.register Item do
  filter :status, as: :select, collection: Item.statuses.keys,
         label: -> { I18n.t("activerecord.attributes.item.status") }
end

Expected Behavior:
The filter label defined using a Proc or a lambda (->) that calls I18n.t should be evaluated on each request and update dynamically to reflect the currently selected locale.

Actual Behavior:
The filter label is rendered as the string representation of the Proc or lambda object.

tagliala · 2025-05-10T15:09:08Z

tagliala
May 10, 2025
Maintainer

Hello,

To address your question:

Is it documented that label accepts a Proc?
From the available documentation, it doesn't appear to explicitly state that label can accept a Proc. If there is documentation or examples to the contrary, sharing them would be helpful.
Is this expected to work because Rails-based applications manage to accept Procs in that way?
While Rails applications typically allow the use of Proc or lambda for dynamic behaviors, I'm not familiar with this approach when it comes to messages. Do you have a reference in Rails' documentation?
What is the application trying to achieve with this approach?
The likely intent is to dynamically translate filter labels based on the current locale. This approach aligns with Rails' I18n patterns, where translations adapt to the application's locale without requiring restarts.

10 replies

tagliala May 12, 2025
Maintainer

Thanks. Found it and I'm able to reproduce

So we have an issues with scopes, the offending line for v3 is:

activeadmin/lib/active_admin/views/components/active_filters_sidebar_content.rb

Line 49 in 6234aa4

label = filter.try(:[], :label) || filter_name.titleize

But this is also an issue on V4

@mgrunberg I'm not very familiar with this part, I'm quite suprised that label does not work for filters in that scenario (returned object are hashes)

mgrunberg May 13, 2025
Maintainer

@tagliala I'm not very familiar with this part, but this also took me by surprise.

I did a quick test with the test app on master and label works as expected with ransack predicates. It's just a problem of scopes.

Compared with the offending line you highlighted, ransack predicates (active_filters) label logic is far more complicated and deals with many scenarios.

activeadmin/lib/active_admin/views/components/active_filters_sidebar_content.rb

Line 11 in 6234aa4

    
           active_filters = ActiveAdmin::Filters::Active.new(active_admin_config, assigns[:search])

activeadmin/lib/active_admin/views/components/active_filters_sidebar_content.rb

Line 32 in 6234aa4

active_filters.filters.each { |filter| filter_item(filter) }

activeadmin/lib/active_admin/views/components/active_filters_sidebar_content.rb

Lines 39 to 44 in 6234aa4

    
           def filter_item(filter) 
        
             li filter.html_options do 
        
               span filter.label 
        
               b to_sentence(filter.values.map { |v| pretty_format(v) }) 
        
             end 
        
           end

activeadmin/lib/active_admin/filters/active_filter.rb

Lines 27 to 38 in 6fcc9d7

    
           def label 
        
             translated_predicate = predicate_name.downcase 
        
             if filter_label && filter_label.is_a?(Proc) 
        
               "#{filter_label.call} #{translated_predicate}" 
        
             elsif filter_label 
        
               "#{filter_label} #{translated_predicate}" 
        
             elsif related_class 
        
               "#{related_class_name} #{translated_predicate}" 
        
             else 
        
               "#{attribute_name} #{translated_predicate}" 
        
             end.strip 
        
           end

I can't say why scopes are handled differently. @javierjulio do you have an insight on this?

javierjulio May 13, 2025
Maintainer

Sorry, I don't. I do recall changes around this over the years to make improvements so I'm not surprised if some cases are missing or not handled.

prashana-sht May 15, 2025

@tagliala @mgrunberg @javierjulio, is there any update on how we can handle the scopes?

tagliala May 15, 2025
Maintainer

I think a fix is required, but at the moment I cannot allocate time for a PR.

Also, V4 and V3 are different, so we should have two different fixes. I would investigate why scopes are returned as hashes and then try to submit a PR with specs

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Dynamic I18n labels in Active Admin filters render as Proc objects instead of translated strings #8718

bbasanta238 May 10, 2025

Replies: 1 comment · 10 replies

tagliala May 10, 2025 Maintainer

tagliala May 12, 2025 Maintainer

mgrunberg May 13, 2025 Maintainer

javierjulio May 13, 2025 Maintainer

prashana-sht May 15, 2025

tagliala May 15, 2025 Maintainer

bbasanta238
May 10, 2025

Replies: 1 comment 10 replies

tagliala
May 10, 2025
Maintainer

tagliala May 12, 2025
Maintainer

mgrunberg May 13, 2025
Maintainer

javierjulio May 13, 2025
Maintainer

tagliala May 15, 2025
Maintainer