App Translations / Internationalisation

[gfwilliams]

This is a replacement for #136 - without the discussion about how to implement it...

Historically, we used the locale module for translations (http://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js+Locale) but this only provided extremely basic translation (yes/no/etc). While more translations could have been added, these would use up memory and would make apps run slowly.

We are now moving towards translating apps automatically in the app loader during the upload process

It works pretty simply:

• In the app.js file, write any text in English and put /*LANG*/ in front of any text string that should be translated
• Upon upload, the app is scanned for these strings, and they are replaced if they are found in the translation file in the lang folder, for instance https://github.com/espruino/BangleApps/blob/master/lang/de_DE.json

Current status:

• It works. 'Translations' is added to the settings in the About page of the App Loader
• About the only app with /*LANG*/ entries in at the moment is Settings - we need more apps with the LANG tag added
• Translations for different languages are very lacking - run bin/language_scan.js to get an idea. we need more translations! Maybe we want to try doing translations automatically so we have some placeholders?
• Translations are not 'smart'. While they are aware of punctuation at the beginning and end they're not aware of capitalisation - perhaps if this worked better we could get away with less translations required.

Any help that can be provided is hugely welcome! This has been requested a lot so I've done what I can, but my language of non-english languages is seriously lacking.

[HilmarSt]

sorry for this newbie question, but how do I "run bin/language_scan.js" on a windows PC?

[gfwilliams]

You'd have to install node.js (https://nodejs.org/en/) but once you do that, I believe you get a shell window you can open. You can go to the directory and run node bin/language_scan.js

[alessandrococco]

Hi @gfwilliams, I have a doubt about the key of a translation.

language_scan.js returns This will remove everything but the phrase is This will remove everything! (as in E.showPrompt(/*LANG*/'This will remove everything!', ...) What should I use as a key? This will remove everything or This will remove everything!? (I think the latter)

[gfwilliams]

I think you need to use This will remove everything since the actual translation uses the keys without any punctuation.

At some point it could probably be improved but right now that's how it works:

https://github.com/espruino/EspruinoAppLoaderCore/blob/c243e6e71f88358de720ad16ba8515b32b8d650f/js/appinfo.js#L50-L56

[alessandrococco]

Hi @gfwilliams, I came across another special case: if a string contains \n it won't be translated.

In setting/settings.js there's the line E.showPrompt(name + /*LANG*/"\nStay Connectable?". The language_scan tool returns nStay Connectable as key. I tried using \nStay Connectable, nStay Connectable and Stay Connectable but the string is not translated. The same happens with Connect device\nto add to\nwhitelist.

1. Should \n at the beginning and end be handled as punctuation? See translateJS: handle \n at beginning/end of the string EspruinoAppLoaderCore#14
2. How should be handle the \n in the middle of a String?

As a workaround for a \n at the beginning/end I can update the source string from /*LANG*/"\nStay Connectable?" to "\n" + /*LANG*/"Stay Connectable?" but it feels dirty :-D

[gfwilliams]

Ahh, thanks - yes, this is due to the slightly hacky lexer that's in EspruinoTools. Should be fixed now.

[gfwilliams]

Actually it's not fixing this bug - just what you mentioned above :)

[copoer]

@gfwilliams This should hopfully solve all your issues:
#1414