Base language strings as translation keys

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[x] feature request

I’m not really sure which category this issue belongs to.

I would like to use base language strings as message IDs in my templates as opposed to made up IDs:

{{ 'Log in' | translate }} vs. {{ 'HOME_LOGIN_BUTTON' | translate }}

It does not seem like it’s supported to use real strings with params though. Angular complains about template parse error (And rightly so) when doing this:

{{ 'Hello {{ name }}' | translate: { name: 'Kim' } }}

Would it maybe make sense to change {{PARAM}} to {PARAM} or something completely else, to not trip up the angular template parser?

[biesbjerg]

If you want, you can close this. It’s possible to use real strings as base language (with working interpolation) using custom TranslateParser and MissingTranslationHandler, although it’s not trivial to do for beginners.

app/app.module.ts

import { TranslateModule, TranslateLoader } from 'ng2-translate';
import { TRANSLATE_PROVIDERS, translateLoaderFactory } from '../i18n';

@NgModule({
	declarations: [
		AppComponent
	],
	imports: [
		IonicModule.forRoot(AppComponent),
		SharedModule,
		TranslateModule.forRoot({
			provide: TranslateLoader,
			useFactory: translateLoaderFactory,
			deps: [Http]
		})
	],
	bootstrap: [
		IonicApp
	],
	entryComponents: [
		AppComponent
	],
	providers: [
		...TRANSLATE_PROVIDERS
	]
})
export class AppModule {
}

i18n/index.ts

import { Http } from '@angular/http';

import {
	TranslateParser,
	DefaultTranslateParser,
	MissingTranslationHandler,
	MissingTranslationHandlerParams } from 'ng2-translate';

import { TranslatePoLoader } from '@biesbjerg/ng2-translate-po-loader';

export class InterpolatedTranslateParser extends DefaultTranslateParser {
	public templateMatcher: RegExp = /{\s?([^{}\s]*)\s?}/g;
}
export class InterpolatedMissingTranslationHandler implements MissingTranslationHandler {
	public parser: TranslateParser = translateParserFactory();
	public handle(params: MissingTranslationHandlerParams) {
		// return params.translateService.parser.interpolate(params.key, params.interpolateParams);
		// Workaround until this PR is merged: https://github.com/ocombe/ng2-translate/pull/348
		return this.parser.interpolate(params.key, params.interpolateParams);
	}
}

export function translateParserFactory() {
	return new InterpolatedTranslateParser();
}
export function translateLoaderFactory(http: Http) {
	return new TranslatePoLoader(http, 'assets/i18n');
}

export const TRANSLATE_PROVIDERS = [
	{ provide: TranslateParser, useFactory: translateParserFactory },
	{ provide: MissingTranslationHandler, useClass: InterpolatedMissingTranslationHandler }
];

[biesbjerg]

A little context:

I usually work with po-files (Gettext), where msgid is the full untranslated string in the base language.

We use a translation service and the translators have never seen our app and wouldn’t know what any of my made up keys means, making it impossible to do a proper translation.

Reasons (some subjective?) for using ‘real strings’ as translation keys in a project:

• Code is easier to read
• If you want to change the English text, you just change the english translation.
• Text in your code is very close, if not identical, to what is shown in your app
• Possible for an external translators to make sense of the strings and translate it