nls support for package.json and common-js

[dbaeumer]

Assignments

• Windows @joaomoreno
• OS X @weinand
• Linux @Tyriar

Details

We now have nls support for package.json and common-js. To test do the following:

Package.json for Extensions

• create a package.nls.json file as a sibling to your package.json file
• in package.json, replace strings that should be localized with a key surrounded by %%. For example

"commands": [
            {
                "command": "typescript.reloadProjects",
                "title": "%typescript.reloadProjects.title%",
                "category": "TypeScript"
            }
        ],

• In the package.nls.json add a key value pair that maps the key to a human readable value for our default language (which is English).

{
    "typescript.reloadProjects.title": "Reload Project",
}

Ensure that when you start the extension the correct string is presented in the user interface. Also ensure that pseudo translation works. To do so start vscode with --locale=pseudo. The strings from the package.nls.json should be enclosed in [] and vowels should be doubled.

CommonJS Extensions

Install vscode-nls as a dependency of your extension. In the extension main add the following code:

import * as nls from 'vscode-nls';
let localize = nls.config({ locale: 'pseudo' })();

And in the activate function add

console.log(localize('key', 'Extension activated'));

This should show the following in the console:

[Plugin Host] ［Exteensiioon aactiivaateed］

In other files in the extension you don't need to configure the nls module again. You can simple do:

import * as nls from 'vscode-nls';
let localize = nls.loadMessageBundle();

If you want to leave the code in since you tested it with your extension code then simply remove the locale property and initialize as follows:

import * as nls from 'vscode-nls';
let localize = nls.config()();

[joaomoreno]

More detailed testing steps would be appreciated. Also, I have no idea how to setup and test a Portuguese translation...

[weinand]

@joaomoreno we do not have any translations other than the pseudo translation. If we had, you could test Portuguese by launching code with "--locale=pt_PT" or "--locale=pt_BR".

[joaomoreno]

Isn't each extension supposed to ship its own translations files? If so, how can I set up a Portuguese file?

[weinand]

@joaomoreno the process (i.e. tools) that produces these files is not yet ready (https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-nls-dev). The default package.nls.json I've created manually. I assume that you can make a Portuguese clone of it but we would have to reverse engineer the name of that file from the source in vscode-nls-dev.
For the other nls files it is even more complex to manually doing it because the keys that you pass to localize() are converted into sequential numbers...

[joaomoreno]

Got it