Lingua: Managing ngx-translations

Lingua - a Visual Studio Code extension to help managing translations for ngx-translate - a internationalization (i18n) library for Angular.

Goals:

Lingua's goals is to help developers creating, and managing translations with ngx-translate, directly in the editor. With Lingua you can:

• Create translations directly in your html or ts file
• Change translation directly in your html or ts file
• Inline-Lookup of your translations in the editor
• Autocomplete translation keys in html
• Analyse translation usage (e.g. how many translations, how many unused translations, ...)
• Find translations in your language-file

Usage:

Lingua is automatically started when you work on an Angular project. But to use its features you first have to specify at least one language file (e.g. en.json, de.json, ...)

This is done by opening the [language].json file in the editor and selecting right-click context menu "Set as language file". Enter the language identifier, which you want to use (e.g. en) in the quick promt field. Lingua automatically creates a .lingua settings file in the root of your project.

The first file you set as a language file will be your default language. This means mouse-over translations are generated from this language file. You can change the default in the settings with the defaultLanguage parameter

Chose your translation key style

Lingua allows for for a 'nested' and a 'flat" translation key style. If Lingua detects you are using a 'flat' key style, you will be promted to change the key style in the Lingua settings. If you are using a 'mixed' style, you will be warned about it, but you can always disable the warning if you like.

// Nested style
"some": {
    "translation_1": "Some translation",
    "translation_2": "Some other translation"
}

// Flat style
"some.translation_1": "Some translation",
"some.translation_2": "Some other translation"
}

Note: Mixed styles are currently not allowed as Lingua depends on knowing the hierarchy to be able to manipulate the translation *.json.

Creating new translations

Write a translation key in your code like 'some.key' for which you want to create a translation. Select the key or place the cursor in it and open the context menu with right-click. Select Lingua: Create translation. You will be promted to enter a translation for this translation key, following with a promt to select the language for which you want to create this translation for.

Changing translations

Change translations directly in your html or ts file by opening the context menu, selecting Lingua: Change translation and typing in a new translation for the current translation key.

Go to a translation in your default language file

Select a translation key or place the cursor on it and open the context menu with right-click. Select Lingua: Go to translation to get to the correct location in the default language file.

Analysing translation usage

Hit Ctrl+P and enter the command Lingua: analyse translation usage to calculate some metrics about translations in your project. Metrics include:

• Total amount of translations for each defined language
• Total amount of partial translations
• Ununsed or missing translations (translations that are not used in the project)

Partial translations are translation keys that are resolved during runtime, e.g. in 'some.translation.key.${parameter}' the key some.translation.key is recognized as a partial path in the translation.

Other Commands

You can execute commands that are not exposed by the GUI by opening the command input (e.g. Ctrl+P on Windows) and entering the following commands:

• Lingua: selectDefaultLanguage: This will let you chose the language that is used for inline translation when you have multiple language files defined.

Configuration

Most of the Lingua settings are located under the extension settings in vscode.

Lingua also needs at least the location of one language file in order to work. If this file is selected a .lingua settings file will be created in the root of the project. This file can be shared with collaborators on your project.

Planned features:

• Sync multiple lang-files
• Import/Export Translations