vscode-nls-dev

The tools automates the extraction of strings to be externalized from TS and JS code. It therefore helps localizing VSCode extensions and language servers written in TS and JS. It also contains helper methods to convert unlocalized JSON to XLIFF format for translations, and back to localized JSON files, with ability to push and pull localizations from Transifex platform.

4.0.0-next.1

• Add support for comments in messages (e.g. package.nls.json)
• Remove Transifex support
• General code cleanup. Move to TS 4.3.1 and more stricter type checking.

3.3.2

• Merged allow es imports, update ts and use their helper methods

3.0.0

• added support to bundle the strings into a single nls.bundle(.${locale})?.json file.
• added support for VS Code language packs.

2.1.0:

• Add support to push to and pull from Transifex.

2.0.0:

• based on TypeScript 2.0. Since TS changed the shape of the d.ts files for 2.0.x a major version number got introduce to not break existing clients using TypeScript 1.8.x.

JSON->XLIFF->JSON

To perform unlocalized JSON to XLIFF conversion it is required to call prepareXlfFiles(projectName, extensionName) piping your extension/language server directory to it, where projectName is the Transifex project name (if such exists) and extensionName is the name of your extension/language server. Thereby, XLF files will have a path of projectName/extensionName.xlf.

To convert translated XLIFF to localized JSON files prepareJsonFiles() should be called, piping .xlf files to it. It will parse translated XLIFF to JSON files, reconstructed under original file paths.

Transifex Push and Pull

Updating Transifex with latest unlocalized strings is done via pushXlfFiles('www.transifex.com', apiName, apiToken) and pullXlfFiles('www.transifex.com', apiName, apiToken, languages, resources) for pulling localizations respectively. When pulling, you have to provide resources array with object literals that have name and project properties. name corresponds to the resource name in Transifex and project is a project name of your Transifex project where this resource is stored. languages argument is an array of strings of culture names to be pulled from Transifex.

Onboarding Extension to Transifex

Here is a sample code that adds localization using Transifex. You can copy and use it as a template for your own extension, changing the values to the ones described in the code comments.

var nls = require('vscode-nls-dev');
const vscodeLanguages = [
	'zh-hans',
	'zh-hant',
	'ja',
	'ko',
	'de',
	'fr',
	'es',
	'ru',
	'it'
]; // languages an extension has to be translated to

const transifexApiHostname = 'www.transifex.com';
const transifexApiName = 'api';
const transifexApiToken = process.env.TRANSIFEX_API_TOKEN; // token to talk to Transifex (to obtain it see https://docs.transifex.com/api/introduction#authentication)
const transifexProjectName = 'vscode-extensions'; // your project name in Transifex
const transifexExtensionName = 'vscode-node-debug'; // your resource name in Transifex

gulp.task('transifex-push', function() {
	return gulp.src('**/*.nls.json')
		.pipe(nls.prepareXlfFiles(transifexProjectName, transifexExtensionName))
		.pipe(nls.pushXlfFiles(transifexApiHostname, transifexApiName, transifexApiToken));
});

gulp.task('transifex-pull', function() {
	return nls.pullXlfFiles(transifexApiHostname, transifexApiName, transifexApiToken, vscodeLanguages, [{ name: transifexExtensionName, project: transifexProjectName }])
		.pipe(gulp.dest(`../${transifexExtensionName}-localization`));
});

gulp.task('i18n-import', function() {
	return gulp.src(`../${transifexExtensionName}-localization/**/*.xlf`)
		.pipe(nls.prepareJsonFiles())
		.pipe(gulp.dest('./i18n'));
});

To push strings for translation to Transifex you call gulp transifex-push. To pull and perform the import of latest translations from Transifex to your extension, you need to call transifex-pull and i18n-import sequentially. This will pull XLF files from Transifex in first gulp task, and import them to i18n folder in JSON format.

LICENSE

MIT