Allow strings in JSON format to use one JSON key as the ID and another as the translation

[SamWhited]

Describe the problem

The JSON formats currently supported by weblate all assume that the JSON looks something like this:

{
  "translation key": "translated string"
}

However, my JSON looks something like this:

{
  "lang": "en-US",
  "messages": [
    {
      "id": "translation key",
      "translation": "translated string"
    }
  ]
}

I can mark the "lang" key as read only, so there's no trouble there, but each field in messages shows up as a translatable string, ie. messages[0].id and messages[0].translation. This isn't the end of the world, except that to a non-technical translator it looks as if they should translate "id". If I mark the ID field as read-only it does not get copied into the JSON from the source strings file, so we end up with a broken entry that contains the translation but no ID.

Describe the solution you'd like

It would be nice if you could specify a field where its value would act as the ID instead of assuming the field name is the ID. Alternatively, Go's gotext format from https://pkg.go.dev/golang.org/x/text/cmd/gotext could be supported directly (though it's not widely used and not very well documented, so it may not be ready for native support yet and this could probably be implemented in a generic way anyways).

Describe alternatives you've considered

Right now I'm just allowing the id keys to be translated and requiring review for all translations so that I can tell people not to translate that key.

Screenshots

Additional context

No response

[nijel]

How is this related to https://docs.weblate.org/en/latest/formats.html#go-i18n-json-files?

[SamWhited]

@nijel it's not related, that's a totally different 3rd party thing that's already supported.

[nijel]

I'm asking because it has similar layout of the JSON file (with id being a hash item as well).

Anyway, the best approach is to add support for this particular format.

[github-actions]

The issue you've reported needs to be addressed in the translate-toolkit. Please file the issue there, and include links to any relevant specifications about the formats (if applicable).

[SamWhited]

I see, thank you! I don't see an example of that file format, but I was under the impression it just used a flat one. I'll take a look though and file an issue upstream as indicated, thanks again!

EDIT: go-i18n uses a JSON array as the top-level element in the file, whereas gotext uses a map with a key that contains an array with all the translations, so I don't think the two would be interchangeable, but I'll mess with it and see.

[SamWhited]

Oops, found translate/translate#4450 so it looks like this issue has already been filed!

[github-actions]

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