arb-util

When managing application code, with layout and so stuff, having to handle additionaly arb translation files can be a real burden, especially when it involves several languages.

this helps you to solve this via a few operations, done in a loop every 5 seconds.

1. Text translations extraction It is somehow common to use _"..." strings to mark strings for translations when using tools like gettext, arb-util uses this to detect what should be sent to arb files.
   • Goes through all the .dart files in $(project.root)/lib and searches for _"..." strings(Take note of the double quote).
   • generates a valid dart variable name of the text, like helloWorld then add's the key and it's string value to the [template-arb-file], the latter auto-sync will do add it in the other files.
   • then replaces the string in the original file with AppLocalizations call.
2. Arb files synchronization
   • Goes through all the arb files and copies every missing key to the other, prepending with a '#'.
3. Rebuld localizations
   • If the arb files mtime have changed it runs using `flutter gen-l10n --project-dir=$(project.root)``.

Usage

First, make sure you have julia installed, or install from https://julialang.com/download. You can clone the repo with:

• git clone https://github.com/recordbreakersorg/arb-util.git
• gh repo clone recordbreakersorg/arb-util

Then to run the script, run the app change working directory to your project root.

Running with Julia JIT

if you have fish run: /path/to/repo/manage.fish run else manually run: julia /path/ro/repo/src/main.jl

Precompiling

With julia installed, go to the cloned project and run: ./manage.fish compile, runs on my low-end pc in 11m 15s seconds and produces an ~224.9MB executable. Then running ./manage.fish run will detect the executable and use it.

!NOTE: adding the compiled executable to path may result in errors. Prefer creating a shell script to run it using it's full path.

!NOTE: Make sure you run the script in a compatible flutter project else you may get ugly errors.

Trimmed compilation

Not implemented

Trimmed compilation uses to take less than a minute on similar projects, but the JSON package seems not to work well with juliac.jl, still looking for a fix...

Once installed

Go to your project root(make sure to commit to prevent any loss... Crashes are still possible and not well handled.), then run arb-util.

Then just code, to add a translation simply prepend any string literal in a .dart source file in lib/, save and wait 8secs, arb-util's log will alert you it noticed the change and the arb files will be updated. If you use neovim like me you just need to focus another buffer or window before returning so as not to overwrite the changes.

To implement

• Add config file.
• Add import AppLocalizations when not imported.
• Allow customized AppLocalizations call.
• Allow diferent arb translations folder location.
• Implement ai translation of the strings for other arb files.
• Use file content hash to check for modificaitons instead of mtime.