Technical Articles
UI5 i18n Plugin for SAP Business Application Studio (Open Source)
Do you have a lot of i18n property files?
Do you want to check if there is a missing translation? Instantly?
…in the brand new SAP Business Application Studio?
Then, this plugin is for you!
Features
This plugin reads every UI5 XML view file and UI5 i18 properties file, cross-checks their usage and shows a nice report in the form of an unsaved file.
In the editor:
View -> Find Command
Alternative: just press F1 or Ctrl+Shift+P
Search for “i18n” and hit enter.
A-ha! This time “Buenos días!” is missing in the Spanish translation:
Let’s fix it by adding “goodMorning” key:
Run the command again. And everything is clear now!
Installation
Copy this plugin path:
github:mdpgroup/ui5-i18n-plugin/ui5-i18n-plugin.theia@latestPress F1 or click View->Find Command.
Search for “deploy plugin” and hit enter.
Paste the plugin path and hit enter!
The plugin should be installed in a few seconds. Then you can again search for command “Check i18n Translations” and hit enter.
Comments & Source Code
It’s that time of the year when SAP embraces some new open technology and I have to do something to applaud their efforts.
2 years ago in April, I wrote a blog post about SAP Web IDE i18n plugin. It was too tempting to port the solution to SAP Business Application Studio.
Web technologies improve every hour and SAP BAS is based on open platforms like Theia and VS Code. As a result, there were more resources and it was a joy to develop this plugin.
Another difference is Web IDE plugins had to be hosted somewhere else. SAP Business Application Studio gives you an entire dockerized development environment in which you have the capability to do a lot of things and have persistence per Dev Space. This small plugin is installed once per the Dev Space, that is all.
Here is the GitHub repo of the plugin: https://github.com/mdpgroup/ui5-i18n-plugin
Any feedback regarding features or other plugin ideas is welcome. You can use GitHub issues or comments for bug reports.
I can write another blog about the development process. Are you interested?
Thanks for sharing. That is a great plugin. And a blog post on the development process would be really interesting. ?
Hi Ronnie,
I'm glad you found it useful. I will also write about the development process then. My next missing translation example will be Norwegian. ?
I developed this plugin specifically as a Theia plugin to find out the differences. And there is a distinction between plugin&extension in Theia terminology. I thought it will be safer to write a plugin. However, as I found out you can also deploy VS Code extensions just fine. I have read your latest blog post. Do you think a VS Code extension will be useful for offline development as well?
I'm an SAP integration consultant by trade so your experience is valuable as a UI5 consultant.
Best regards,
Fatih
Yes, I think a VS code extension would be really useful. A lot of developers are using Visual Studio Code, not for the offline capabilities, but because they prefer their own development environment. In that sense, a Visual Studio Code extension would cater to a larger audience, than just the Business Application Studio users.
Thank you for contributing to the community. There are lots of developers here, like Volker Buzek, Gregor Wolf, Wouter Lemaire, among others,that probably would be willing to give you feedback. ?
Yes, I was thinking of informing them 🙂 In fact, Wouter Lemaire gave me great technical tips for the Web IDE version of the plugin and Gregor Wolf was one of the first users that gave me feedback. It is really motivating to get good feedback from people whom I respect deeply.
I think I can publish the Visual Studio Code version next weekend since they are technically very similar. I have a few more things to thinker this weekend 🙂
Thanks again for your comments!
thanks a lot for sharing this informative Blog
Hi Rana, I'm glad you found it useful! If you have feedback or if you encounter any bugs feel free to write here.
Regards,
Fatih
Hi
I tried to install the plugin, but it seems that the "Deploy Plugin by Id" is no longer available in the Business Application Studio.
Is there an other way to install it?
Regards Ercole