Translate Tool

This tool allows translators to quickly and conveniently translate JSON language files.

Add translation files from any public URL
BitBucket and GitHub support (reading, pulls, commits, pull requests & branches)
Google Translate support
Optional Google authentication (can see commit author)
Add new keys in the same order as in the UI
Whitelisted email domains
Warnings if key is not in default language file
Warnings if {placeholders} are missing
Detect HTML tags within text
Raw HTML/styled previews
Multiple project tabs & project sharing via link

Built with Svelte, TypeScript, Vite & Express

Demo

Here's a demo project. Signing in with any Gmail account is required.

The project is saved to your local storage, so you no longer require the shareable link to access it.

Using the tool

File structure

The same structure is supported by @codeborne/i18n-json npm package, which can be used by your application.

langs.json

Your translation directory must contain a langs.json file with an array of languages, such as:

["en", "pl", "fr", "de"]

The first language in the array, in this case en, will be the default language and all other translations will follow its JSON structure.

Translation files

Along with langs.json, each language must have a separate JSON file with the language as its file name. Here's an example of a complete file structure:

 langs.json
 en.json
 de.json
 pl.json
 fr.json

The default language, en, as defined by being the first language in langs.json, may have any JSON structure you like.

Here's an example en.json

{
  "general": {
    "yes": "Yes",
    "no": "No",
    "edit": "Edit",
    "remove": "Remove",
    "save": "Save",
    "filter": {
      "today": "Today",
      "yesterday": "Yesterday",
      "thisWeek": "This week",
      "thisMonth": "This month",
      "thisYear": "This year"
    }
  },
  "forbidden": {
    "message": "Access denied!"
  },
  "notfound": {
    "home": "Home page",
    "message": "Page Not Found"
  }
}

The rest of the files, in this case de.json, fr.json, pl.json, can start off with an empty object until it gets populated by the tool:

{}

Project config

Before you start translating, you require a project config. This config holds all the relevant information to edit your translations.

For most, it is much easier to generate it from the tool itself by using the project importing option. Alternatively, you may follow this JSON structure:

[
  {
    "title": "Project1",
    "url": "https://somelink.com/myproject/translations/",
    "token": "some_access_token_mdasKn23nSDJDnNSm",
    "indent": 2,
    "source": "Github"
  },
  {
    "title": "Project2 Common",
    "url": "https://somelink.com/myproject2/translations/common/",
    "indent": 4,
    "source": "BitBucket"
  }
]

title is the project name within the tool.
url is the url where your translation directory resides.
indent is the space indentation. The default is always 2 when starting a new project via the tranlate tool.
token (optional) is the access token to access a protected url, such as a private GitHub repository. More on that below.

Integrating with GitHub/BitBucket.

This tool supports using a GitHub and BitBucket repositories to fetch and then commit the changes when you're done.

Various projects usually have a defined file structure where all translations are stored in JSON.

Here is an example project file structure. The translations directory holds all the project translations and will be targeted by this tool.

project
│   README.md
│   file001.txt
│
└───src
│   │   file011.txt
│   │   file012.txt
│   │
│   └───subfolder1
│       │   file111.txt
│       │   file112.txt
│       │   ...
│   
└───translations
    │   langs.json
    │   en.json
    │   de.json
    │   pl.json
    │   fr.json

Private repositories

Private repositories require a private access token to view a repository's contents. You can generate one for your GitHub account by accessing your profile and navigating to

Settings -> Developer Settings -> Personal access tokens

To integrate the project with GitHub, simply use the translate tool's Import via Github option and fill the necessary fields.

Same concept applies to BitBucket

BitBucket's Workspace settings > OAuth Consumers and combine the Key and Secret to be Key:Secret, eg KB42ebc8rt64b0k9MV:kud7Nsklf93JK2lsKnNs2kNfgXA2n

Public repositories

For public repositories, you can simply use the Import via public url option give the RAW file GitHub URL

Here's an example:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/<User>/<Repo>/main/translations/

AWS CodeCommit repositories

In AWS environment one possible scenario is to create IAM role, that would have access to required repository. Later, under "Security credentials" tab you can generate access and secret keys.

Setup & Deployment

Requires node, docker and docker-compose to be installed.

Running it

Navigate to the root directory.

Build the project

docker-compose build

Start it on port 8999

docker-compose up

Open http://localhost:8999 to use the tool.

Optional features

Google Authentication

You can make it so only logged in users can access the app, or whitelist individual emails and email domains.

To do so, create a dotfile named .env with the following environment variables and docker-compose will automatically pick it up. Alternatively, you can use any other method of your choice (eg during CI/CD)

GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID=Google OAuth client ID, used for optional authentication
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET=Google OAuth client secret, used for optional authentication
COOKIE_SECRET=Secret for cookie signing, create your own, used for optional authentication

Use your existing or create new Google Cloud Platform credentials (API & Services -> Create Credentials -> OAuth Client ID -> Web Application) to fill the variables

Then add these addresses as Authorized redirect URI's in Google Cloud Platform.

http://localhost:8999/
http://localhost:8999/auth/

Replace localhost/port with your actual domain host. Can take some time after applying the changes!

Whitelisted emails and email domains

*Requires Google Authentication to be set up

In server/config.ts, there are two fields which let you add emails

  ALLOWED_DOMAINS: [],
  ALLOWED_EMAILS: []

Adding just a single email/domain will restrict everybody else not included here. Here's an example:

  ALLOWED_DOMAINS: ['codeborne.com'],
  ALLOWED_EMAILS: ['hello@example.com','world@example.com']

Predefined projects

You can create a predefined project config and use it to always load them by default. Note that this will always override any other projects saved.

docker build --build-arg PROJECTS_FILE=your/projects/location/projects.json .

NB! As a security measure, the server will not run if there are predefined projects present with no authentication set up.

Tag as HTML

End a key with Html to be able to switch between HTML and styled text within the UI.

eg main.aboutHtml or main.contentHtml.support

Marking keys that should not be translated

You can mark certain keys to not be available for translation. They can still in the default language file, but will not show up in other languages.

Create a dont-translate-keys.json file in the root folder and add the full keys with double quotes like so:

["companyInfo", "dont.translate.this.title"]

This will also exclude objects. If companyInfo was an object that contained multiple keys, such as companyInfo.phone, companyInfo.mail etc, it would also mark them as untranslatable.

Available Scripts

Make sure to npm install to install the required dependencies

npm start

Runs the app in the development mode. Open http://localhost:8999 to view it in the browser.

The page will reload if you make edits. You will also see any lint errors in the console.

npm test

Launches the test runner in the interactive watch mode.

npm run build

Builds a static copy of your site to the build/ folder. Your app is ready to be deployed!

codeborne/translate-tool