Help:Extension:Translate/Insertables

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Translatable strings often contain markup that should be retained as-is in the translation. Typing that markup can be slow and difficult because special characters are common. Insertable is a piece of markup that is presented to the translator as a button or other interface element. Clicking the button inserts the piece of markup into the translation to the current cursor position.

Each message group can have one InsertablesSuggester. This class is responsible for generating a list of Insertables. Each Insertable has three parts:

What to display to the user
What is inserted before cursor position in the translation or what replaces the selected content.
What is inserted after cursor position in the translation

Translate extension comes with MediaWikiInsertablesSuggester built-in. Suggesters for other type of content can be found in the translatewiki.net git repository.

User interface

Configuration

Here's a sample configuration change in a YAML file,

INSERTABLES:
  # pre-bundled insertable
  - class: RegexInsertablesSuggester
    params: "/\$[a-zA-Z0-9]+/"
  # custom insertable
  - class: FreeColInsertablesSuggester

AUTOLOAD:
  FreeColInsertablesSuggester: Suggester.php

Pre-provided / Bundled insertables

Following is a list of bundled insertables.

HtmlTagInsertablesSuggester

This insertable will display suggestion for any HTML tags found inside the source string.

For example:

Message: This <a href="abc">link</a>link takes you to the home page.
Suggester displayed: <a href="abc"></a>

MediaWikiInsertablesSuggester

This insertable will display various suggestion for MediaWiki related wikitext messages. These include suggestion for,

Parameters like $1user which are present in API Help messages.
PLURALS, GENDER, GRAMMAR
Suggestions for HTML tags.

NumericalParameterInsertablesSuggester

This insertable will display suggestions for numerical parameters such as $1, $2, $33

RegexInsertablesSuggester

This insertable is a general purpose insertable that can be used to display suggestions based on a custom regular expression.

Example:

  # simple example
  # matches and suggests: $abc
  - class: RegexInsertablesSuggester
    params: "/\$[a-zA-Z0-9]+/"
  # complex example using named captures.
  # matches: [abc](ac) 
  # suggester displayed: [](ac)
  - class: RegexInsertablesSuggester
    params:
      regex: /(?<pre>\[)[^]]+(?<post>\]\([^)]+\))/
      display: $pre $post
      pre: $pre
      post: $post

Parameter description,

regex – The regex to use for identifying insertables. Mandatory.
display – What to show to the user. Not mandatory, defaults to matched value.
pre – What to insert before selection, or replace selection if post remains empty Not mandatory, defaults to matched value.
post – What to insert after selection. Not mandatory, defaults to matched value.

TranslatablePageInsertablesSuggester

Used primarily on translatable pages to provide suggester for variables like $abc.

UrlInsertablesSuggester

This insertable finds URLs (that are normally unchanged in translations) and suggests them for insertion.

Adding a custom insertable

In case existing insertables are not sufficient to meet your requirements, it is possible to add custom insertables.

Here is an example about adding insertables support for existing file based message group: FreeCol. The YAML file has been trimmed for brevity. The newly added lines are highlighted.

FreeCol.yaml:

---
BASIC:
  id: out-freecol
  label: FreeCol
  description: "A strategy game"
  namespace: NS_FREECOL
  class: FileBasedMessageGroup
 
FILES:
  class: JavaFFS
  sourcePattern: %GROUPROOT%/freecol/data/strings/FreeColMessages_%CODE%.properties
  definitionFile: %GROUPROOT%/freecol/data/strings/FreeColMessages.properties
  targetPattern: freecol/data/strings/FreeColMessages_%CODE%.properties

INSERTABLES:
  - class: FreeColInsertablesSuggester

AUTOLOAD:
  FreeColInsertablesSuggester: Suggester.php

Suggester.php:

class FreecolInsertablesSuggester {
	public function getInsertables( $text ) {
		$insertables = array();

		$matches = array();
		// Find variables of format %name%
		// This is the same regular expression as in Checker.php
		preg_match_all( '/%[a-zA-Z_]+%/', $text, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER );
		$new = array_map( function( $match ) {
			// $match[0] is full match, and we don't have any submatches here
			// Since we want the cursor to be at the end of the insertion, we put the whole thing into the "pre" field.
			return new Insertable( $match[0], $match[0] );
		}, $matches );

		return $insertables;
	}
}

The parameters to Insertable are:

class Insertable {
        /**
         * @param string $display What to show to the user
         * @param string $pre What to insert before selection, or replace selection if $post remains empty
         * @param string $post What to insert after selection
         */
        public function __construct( $display, $pre = '', $post = '' ) {
                $this->display = $display;
                $this->pre = $pre;
                $this->post = $post;
        }
[...]
}