l10n-autotranslate

name

l10n-autotranslate

description

Keep the German l10n files in step with the code — fill every source string that has no German yet and drop entries whose source string is gone, writing into l10n/de.json, de.js, de_DE.json and de_DE.js so the app is fully German without waiting for the next Transifex sync. Use when the user wants to auto-translate missing strings to German, remove stale/orphaned translation keys, mentions "l10n-autotranslate", "alles auf Deutsch übersetzen", "fehlende Übersetzungen ergänzen", "stale strings entfernen", "translate missing strings", or after adding/renaming/removing t()/n() strings that should show up in German immediately.

German auto-translate (stopgap for missing translations)

Transifex is the source of truth for translations. The l10n/*.js and l10n/*.json files are generated from the Transifex .po files, so any string added with a fresh t() / n() call stays untranslated (falls back to English) until the next tx pull + convert. This skill fills that gap: it finds the untranslated source strings and writes German for them straight into the four German l10n files, for immediate local coverage.

Important — this is a stopgap, not the canonical path:

• The repo's CLAUDE.md says translation files are managed via Transifex and should not be hand-edited. This skill deliberately does, and the entries it adds will be overwritten (or re-matched) on the next Transifex sync. That is fine and expected — the point is to not ship English-looking UI in the meantime.
• Only ever touch German (de and de_DE). Never other locales.
• Never invent or change source strings. If a missing string looks wrong (a sentence fragment, a missing placeholder, a manual plural split), fix it at the source per CLAUDE.md and the transifex skill instead of papering over it with a translation.

Step 1 — Find what's untranslated

Run from the attendance repo root:

python3 .claude/skills/l10n-autotranslate/scripts/find_untranslated.py

It scans t('attendance', …) / n('attendance', …) in src/ and $l->t() / $l->n() in lib/ (the same strings Transifex extracts, including the mobile-only block in src/App.vue), then prints JSON of every source string missing from l10n/de.json:

{"count": 12, "missing": [
  {"key": "Show QR code", "kind": "string"},
  {"key": "_%n attendee_::_%n attendees_", "kind": "plural",
   "singular": "%n attendee", "plural": "%n attendees"}
]}

kind: "plural" entries use Nextcloud's _singular_::_plural_ key form and need a two-element German array [singular, plural] (German has nplurals=2).

Step 2 — Translate into a map file

Write German for each missing entry into a JSON map (English key → German string, or → [singular, plural] for plurals). Follow the Nextcloud German conventions already used across l10n/de.json:

• Informal "du" (Öffne …, Scanne …, Wähle …) — never "Sie".

• Sentence case: capitalize only the first word (and nouns/proper names).

• No "successfully" wording; keep it plain.

• Keep placeholders byte-for-byte: {name}, {count}, %1$s, %n must survive unchanged and stay meaningful in the German word order.

• Ellipsis: keep the non-breaking space + … (… = U+2026) exactly as in the source key (many keys contain  …).

• Reuse existing wording for consistency — grep l10n/de.json for a neighbouring term before coining a new one:

  python3 -c "import json; d=json.load(open('l10n/de.json'))['translations']; \
    print([ (k,v) for k,v in d.items() if 'checkin' in k.lower().replace('-','') ])"
  

Save the map, e.g. to a scratch file:

{
  "Show QR code": "QR-Code anzeigen",
  "Write NFC tag": "NFC-Tag beschreiben",
  "_%n attendee_::_%n attendees_": ["%n Teilnehmer", "%n Teilnehmer"]
}

Step 3 — Apply to all four files

python3 .claude/skills/l10n-autotranslate/scripts/apply_translations.py MAP.json --dry-run
python3 .claude/skills/l10n-autotranslate/scripts/apply_translations.py MAP.json

The script appends each entry to l10n/de.json, l10n/de.js, l10n/de_DE.json and l10n/de_DE.js, preserving the exact translationtool formatting ("key" : value, arrays as ["a","b"], no trailing comma on the last entry). It is idempotent — keys already present are skipped, so it is safe to re-run and to run in several batches. --dry-run previews without writing.

Step 4 — Verify

1. Re-run find_untranslated.py — count should be 0 (or only the strings you deliberately left for the source-fix path).
2. npm run build must pass (never commit the js/ / css/ app build output — only the hand-edited l10n/*.js|json).
3. Sanity-check the diff: only additive lines in the four l10n/de* files, no reordering of existing entries.
4. Commit on the working branch as fix(l10n): add German for untranslated strings (this repo's convention: no Claude co-author).

Step 5 — Remove stale strings (optional)

When source strings get renamed or removed, their old German entries linger in the l10n files. Find them:

python3 .claude/skills/l10n-autotranslate/scripts/find_stale.py

It reports two buckets:

• orphaned — the exact English literal appears in no source file, so no code can reach the key (Transifex could not have extracted it either). These are safe to remove.
• review — the key is not extracted, but its literal still shows up in source. Each carries a reason:
  • whitespace/ellipsis-drift — the live string uses a non-breaking space before … and this entry a plain one (or vice versa). The right fix is on the source side (make the t() string match), not deleting German.
  • plural-bare-form — a %n … half of a live _%n …_::_%n …_ plural key; usually harmless, leave it.
  • literal-present-in-source — the string (or a superstring of it) is still in the code; likely a real use the extractor missed. Do not remove — grep the code, and widen find_untranslated.py if it is a genuine miss.

Only ever remove keys you have confirmed are dead. Pass a JSON list of keys, or find_stale.py's output directly (its orphaned list is used, review is ignored):

python3 .claude/skills/l10n-autotranslate/scripts/find_stale.py > /tmp/stale.json
python3 .claude/skills/l10n-autotranslate/scripts/remove_stale.py /tmp/stale.json --dry-run
python3 .claude/skills/l10n-autotranslate/scripts/remove_stale.py /tmp/stale.json

remove_stale.py drops the keys from all four files, re-commas so the last entry never keeps a trailing comma, and is idempotent. Re-run find_stale.py (orphaned should be empty), then npm run build and verify .js and .json still agree per locale, exactly as in Step 4.