Add the ability to internationalize apps

[ewpatton]

Describe the desired feature

Provide a UI in the designer or blocks editor, it may also need to be a separate editor type, where app developers can provide string translations for more than one language. There will need to be a way to reference these internationalized strings in both the designer and blocks editor. When compiling apps, the strings will have to be placed in the appropriate locations (values-LANG for Android LANG.lproj for iOS) and make use of the system specific APIs to read and use those strings at runtime.

Give an example of how this feature would be used

The creation of multilingual apps.

Why doesn't the current App Inventor system address this use case?

It can be done, but requires the user to represent the translations as dictionaries in the blocks (or load them from a file asset), and then apply them programmatically at app start. This would streamline the development of apps intended to be used with more than one language.

Why is this feature beneficial to App Inventor's educational mission?

Many countries have more than one national language and students creating an app may want to offer it in all languages.

[Akashgite1]

This is a very interesting feature and seems well suited for a GSoC-scale project. I’d love to explore this further and understand the current architecture around string handling and compilation to see how internationalization could be integrated cleanly.

Are there specific areas of the codebase you’d recommend looking into first?

[SusanRatiLane]

This is a very interesting feature and seems well suited for a GSoC-scale project. I’d love to explore this further and understand the current architecture around string handling and compilation to see how internationalization could be integrated cleanly.

Are there specific areas of the codebase you’d recommend looking into first?

We intend to put this on our GSoC project list.

This is a feature that would be primarily in the Companion, which means it needs support to be added in both Android and iOS. The Android Companion is in the components directory and iOS is in the components-ios directory. It would need to be created in the designer (web app), which is appengine under client.

[Akashgite1]

Thank you for the clarification — that’s very helpful.

I’ll start by exploring the current string handling and UI text flow in the Android Companion (components), iOS Companion (components-ios), and the Designer code under appengine/client to understand how text is currently defined, stored, and propagated to the Companion.

I’ll share any findings or questions as I dig in. Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction!

[Ankita280609]

Hi @ewpatton and @SusanRatiLane, I’m a MERN stack developer and I’ve successfully set up the appinventor-sources environment locally.

To move this forward, I’d like to take the lead on the Designer/AppEngine side of this feature. Specifically, I want to audit the appengine/client code to map out how we can introduce a new 'Internationalization' panel in the Designer to handle these string mappings.

Since @Akashgite1 is focusing on the Companion logic, I can focus on how the Designer stores these new translation attributes in the project metadata so they are ready for the buildserver.

Could you assign me to the Designer-side implementation of this issue? I can share a proposed UI flow/schema by the end of the week.

[SusanRatiLane]

Hi @ewpatton and @SusanRatiLane, I’m a MERN stack developer and I’ve successfully set up the appinventor-sources environment locally.

To move this forward, I’d like to take the lead on the Designer/AppEngine side of this feature. Specifically, I want to audit the appengine/client code to map out how we can introduce a new 'Internationalization' panel in the Designer to handle these string mappings.

Since @Akashgite1 is focusing on the Companion logic, I can focus on how the Designer stores these new translation attributes in the project metadata so they are ready for the buildserver.

Could you assign me to the Designer-side implementation of this issue? I can share a proposed UI flow/schema by the end of the week.

This is a big issue, and we're not ready to assign it at this time. The other user on the thread is investigating it in hopes of submitting a GSoC proposal.

[Ankita280609]

Understood, thank you for the transparency!

I am also working towards a GSoC proposal, so I appreciate the heads-up to avoid overlapping efforts. I will step back from this specific issue and explore other areas for my proposal instead.

[SusanRatiLane]

Understood, thank you for the transparency!

I am also working towards a GSoC proposal, so I appreciate the heads-up to avoid overlapping efforts. I will step back from this specific issue and explore other areas for my proposal instead.

Investigating the issue for a GSoC proposal is not the same as being assigned it.