…without using a view helper*.

In a nutshell:

1. Extend Zend_View
2. Put your method in this extended class
3. Instantiate the class (in your bootstrap for instance)
4. Assign it to the ViewRenderer
5. Pass that viewrenderer to Zend_Controller_Action_HelperBroker’s addHelper method
6. Use it in your view

The details:

In /library/My/Zend/ create View.php:

class My_Zend_View extends Zend_View
{
public function _($string)
{
return Zend_Registry::get('translate')->_($string);
}
}

In your bootstrap:

require_once APPLICATION_PATH.'../library/My/Zend/View.php';

$view = new My_Zend_View();

$viewRenderer = new Zend_Controller_Action_Helper_ViewRenderer();
$viewRenderer->setView($view);
Zend_Controller_Action_HelperBroker::addHelper($viewRenderer);

In your view:

echo $this->_("Hello");

Some extras. I have APPLICATION_PATH defined in index.php as:

define('APPLICATION_PATH', realpath(dirname(__FILE__)).'/application/');

and I have Zend_Translate instantiated in bootstrap.php like:

$translate = new Zend_Translate('csv', APPLICATION_PATH.'../library/Mine/source-en.csv', 'en');

and lastly, don’t forget to register $translate with the registry or that echo in the view file won’t work:

$registry->translate = $translate;

---

*Why not use a view helper? Well, you should, actually. The only reason for this solution is that the original need was for something that would work with the underscore notation used by Poedit. Apparently implementing a method named “_” doesn’t work in a helper so this solution extends Zend_View… adding an underscore method.

Sooo… if you should use a view helper what does that look like?
In /library/My/Helper/Translate.php

class My_Helper_Translate extends Zend_View_Helper_Abstract
{
public function translate($string)
{
return Zend_Registry::get('translate')->_($string);
}
}

In your bootstrap:

$view->addHelperPath("../library/My/Helper/", "My_Helper");

In the view:

echo $this->translate("Hello");