L10n - best practice handling dynamic language dependent texts

jmst · June 20, 2021, 7:41am

Hi,

I have a question which is surely answered somewhere but I didn’t find it.
I want to create an language specific admin gui for a nc plugin.
The admin should be able to define menu texts for different languages.

According to Translation — Nextcloud latest Developer Manual latest documentation one solution could be to let nc do the job. If translations are missing, some background processes are provided to automatically enhance the translations via code inspection.

In my case the admin defines the texts dynamically, evtl. user specific.
I. e. the texts have to be translated on the fly or the admin has to provide the language specific texts himself.

Is there a best practice that the admin provides the text by using nc existing routines?
E.g. enhancing nls files?

Thanks for your help,
Jörg.

nickvergessen · June 20, 2021, 11:39am

It’s far from trivial.

Check out the code from GitHub - nextcloud/terms_of_service: 📜 Requires users to accept the terms of service before accessing data.

Basically you need to add a language selection for the admin and then store it for each language manually:

github.com

nextcloud/terms_of_service/blob/master/lib/Settings/Admin.php#L50

    
      
          
          
	/**
          	 * {@inheritdoc}
          	 */
          	public function getForm(): TemplateResponse {
          		return new TemplateResponse(
          			'terms_of_service',
          			'settings',
          			[
          				'countries' => $this->countryMapper->getCountries(),
          				'languages' => $this->languageMapper->getLanguages(),
          			],
          			''
          		);
          	}
          
          
	/**
          	 * {@inheritdoc}
          	 */
          	public function getSection(): string {
          		return 'terms_of_service';

Provides the language list
It comes from:

github.com

nextcloud/terms_of_service/blob/master/lib/Db/Mapper/LanguageMapper.php

<?php
/**
 * @copyright Copyright (c) 2017 Lukas Reschke <lukas@statuscode.ch>
 *
 * @license GNU AGPL version 3 or any later version
 *
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as
 * published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the
 * License, or (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 * GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
 * along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 *
 */

This file has been truncated. show original

The admin selects it in

github.com

nextcloud/terms_of_service/blob/master/src/App.vue#L42-L46

    
      
          			<Multiselect v-model="language"
          				:options="languageOptions"
          				:placeholder="t('terms_of_service', 'Select a language')"
          				label="label"
          				track-by="value" />

And it’s stored with the text the admin provided:

github.com

nextcloud/terms_of_service/blob/master/src/App.vue#L150

    
      
          				return
          			}
          
          
			this.saveButtonDisabled = true
          			this.saveButtonText = t('terms_of_service', 'Saving …')
          
          
			axios
          				.post(generateUrl('/apps/terms_of_service/terms'),
          					{
          						countryCode: this.country.value,
          						languageCode: this.language.value,
          						body: this.body,
          					})
          				.then(response => {
          					this.$set(this.terms, response.data.id, response.data)
          
          
					this.saveButtonText = t('terms_of_service', 'Saved!')
          					setTimeout(() => {
          						this.saveButtonText = t('terms_of_service', 'Save')
          						this.saveButtonDisabled = false
          					}, 2000)

jmst · June 22, 2021, 7:19am

Thanks for your answer. I’m a complete newbie to nc, php, therefore I didn’t understand the solution.

I cannot expect you to explain the code. Perhaps you can give me a more conceptual answer.
Where does nc store the admin’s texts? (files, DB, …)
In case of files: Are the files reread for every access or only at nc startup?

I know Java’s NLS concept. Text’s are stored in language/country specific NLS files.
Texts are selected via package name/ID and the language/country parameters.
If the specific NLS file does not exist, a default file is taken.

I think for user specific texts which should be changable effectivly within a user session, the file concept is not the best way (don’t know whether files are cached, read at every access, …).
DB should be better. Does nc offers sth for this purpose? Do one have to implement it himself?

Thanks for your patience.

nickvergessen · June 22, 2021, 8:57am

Your app has to take care of storing and reading the value.
Since we are in php (non-persistent) I would recommend to store it in the database (like the terms of service app does).

If you are new to php, maybe it makes sense to work through the tutorial first:
https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/developer_manual/app_development/tutorial.html