Add a translation api controller to the Delivery API

[ToxicKevinFerm]

Internationalization is important, so I would like a way to fetch Umbraco dictionary items. Preferably it would be using the request language, and return a json format similar to https://www.i18next.com/misc/json-format as a good standard in the field.

Prerequisites

Add a few translation items and test the API in /umbraco/swagger/

Description

I added a TranslationApiControllerBase that creates a new route and section in the API Explorer "translation".
Then I added a new controller endpoint GetListTranslationApiController with an optional startItem param that fetches dictionary values from LocalizationService and writes them to a json format.

I'm not sure you need to be able to fetch a single item, but you can with startItem.
The idea is to fetch your translations for a given language and cache it on the client side.

Here's where I'm a bit unsure of the Umbraco internals, do we need to index the dictionary items from LocalizationService? Do we need a cache or is the service fetching cached items already?

This is a work in progress, and I'm not sure what your thoughts are on adding new controllers to the Delivery API, but I feel like it'd be a good addition. It's also my first time looking into the Umbraco Core, so I might be totally wrong on best practices and such.

I'm not sure what you want the Delivery API to be going forwards, but I would consider dictionary to be part of the content.

[github-actions]

Hi there @ToxicKevinFerm, thank you for this contribution! 👍

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[busrasengul]

Thank you @ToxicKevinFerm
I'm not 100% sure about extending the Delivery API in the core so I'll ask HQ to look into this.
But it looks like a great way to do when needed!

[ToxicKevinFerm]

Thank you @ToxicKevinFerm I'm not 100% sure about extending the Delivery API in the core so I'll ask HQ to look into this. But it looks like a great way to do when needed!

Hi! Yes, that's what I was thinking as well, it does look pretty clean right now.

But I do think there is functionality missing that would fit very well there considering you might want to build a website with Next.js for example. The Delivery API does that very well today, but leaves something to be desired when you want dictionary values.

It could just as well be a plugin extending the delivery api, but I thought I'd give it a shot here first =)

[kjac]

Hi @ToxicKevinFerm,

Thanks a lot for this ❤️

We're going to have a little pow-wow at HQ to figure out where the Dictionary places itself in respect to the Delivery API. Unfortunately we can't gather all relevant parties until early next week, so please have a little patience with us 😄

I'll get back to you here when I have something to share.

[ToxicKevinFerm]

Hi @ToxicKevinFerm,

Thanks a lot for this ❤️

We're going to have a little pow-wow at HQ to figure out where the Dictionary places itself in respect to the Delivery API. Unfortunately we can't gather all relevant parties until early next week, so please have a little patience with us 😄

I'll get back to you here when I have something to share.

Great! Thank you =) I'm open to changes for sure

[kjac]

Hi @ToxicKevinFerm.

Thank you again for contributing to Umbraco 💪

We agree that a Translation Delivery API would be a nice addition to the core. However, at this point there are a few things that prevent it. The main thing is that the LocalizationService queries the database directly - the dictionary is not cached 😢

To build a Translation API we first need to figure out a caching strategy for dictionary items.

The next thing to consider is how to shape the API. Translations have historically been utilized in a number of different ways for any number of different purposes. When we add a core API, we need to make sure we've covered all (or most of) those use cases. So... we need to talk to people 😄

To start this whole process I have opened a discussion here: #15214 - feel free to chime in 👍

I'm going to close this PR now in favour of the discussion. I have cross-linked the discussion and the PR so we retain the history. At least for the time being, people will have to create their own Translation APIs to cater for their specific use cases.

⚠️ For future reference, if anyone stumbles upon this: Be VERY mindful of how you expose dictionary items. The uncached nature of LocalizationService means you'll introduce a potential attack vector for malicious users if you're not careful.