syncstrings

Managing Localizable.strings files sucks. Translating them with a team sucks. This tool syncs your local .strings files with a Google Spreadsheet to allow easy collaboration on your localization.

Installation

sudo npm install -g syncstrings

Usage

syncstrings -c [path to config file]

What does the tool do?

1. Load your configuration
2. Connect to the configured spreadsheet and load all definded strings
3. Load the local .strings file and overwrite all strings with the corresponding strings from the spreadsheet
4. Upload all new keys to the spreadsheet
5. Save your local .strings file

How should the config look like?

 
{
 
    "google": {
        "spreadsheetId": "spreadsheet id",
        "worksheetName": "Translation",
        "username": "[e-mail]",
        "password": "hihihi"
    },
 
    "translation": {
        "basePath": "path/to/project/directory",
        "startRow": "2",
        "keyRow": "1",
        "commentRow": "2",
        "languages": {
            "Base": "3"
        }
    }
 
}
 

Name	Description
google.spreadsheetId	the ID of the spreadsheet. Look in your browsers address bar
google.worksheetName	the title of the worksheet to use
translation.basePath	path to the directory that contains the "language".lproj files
translation.startRow	Importing will start at this row. 1-based. Start at 2 to leave room for a headline
translation.keyRow	Column to put the keys in (yeah, it should be called keyColumn)
translation.commentRow	Column to put the comments (currently not supported)
translation.languages	Object containing "Name of language" => "number of column to put stuff in"

How should the spreadsheet look like?

How should I update my local strings file after adding new keys to my source?

This sucks. But fortunately there is a REALLY nice tool to do the job. Just buy LocalizableStringsMerge and stay happy.

(But you'll need to remove the `/* NEW */ flags it creates prior to syncing the strings)

Known bugs

This is a quickly developed script which works for me, but I think it could be useful for others. Theoretically it should support multiple languages, but this is currently untested.

Licence

MIT