Flutter Google Sheet localizations generator

Generates a localizations delegate from an online Google Sheet file.

Install

Add the following to your pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  flutter_sheet_localization: <latest>
  flutter_localizations:
    sdk: flutter

dev_dependencies:
  flutter_sheet_localization_generator: <latest>
  build_runner: <latest>

Usage

1. Create a Google Sheet

Create a sheet with your translations (following the bellow format, an example sheet is available here) :

Make sure that your sheet is shared :

Extract from the link the DOCID and SHEETID values : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/<DOCID>/edit#gid=<SHEETID>) :

2. Declare a localization delegate

Declare the following AppLocalizationsDelegate class with the SheetLocalization annotation pointing to your sheet in a lib/localization.dart file :

import 'package:flutter/widgets.dart';
import 'package:flutter/foundation.dart';
import 'package:flutter_sheet_localization/flutter_sheet_localization.dart';

part 'localization.g.dart';

@SheetLocalization("DOCID", "SHEETID", 1) // <- See 1. to get DOCID and SHEETID
// the `1` is the generated version. You must increment it each time you want to regenerate
// a new version of the labels.
class AppLocalizationsDelegate
    extends LocalizationsDelegate<AppLocalizationsData> {
  const AppLocalizationsDelegate();

  @override
  bool isSupported(Locale locale) => localizedLabels.containsKey(locale);

  @override
  Future<AppLocalizationsData> load(Locale locale) =>
      SynchronousFuture<AppLocalizationsData>(localizedLabels[locale]!);
  @override
  bool shouldReload(AppLocalizationsDelegate old) => false;
}

3. Generate your localizations

Run the following command to generate a lib/localization.g.dart file :

flutter packages pub run build_runner build

4. Configure your app

Update your Flutter app with your newly created delegate :

MaterialApp(
    locale: AppLocalizations.languages.keys.first, // <- Current locale
    localizationsDelegates: [
    const AppLocalizationsDelegate(), // <- Your custom delegate
    GlobalMaterialLocalizations.delegate,
    GlobalWidgetsLocalizations.delegate,
    ],
    supportedLocales:
        AppLocalizations.languages.keys.toList(), // <- Supported locales
    // ...
);

5. Display your labels

final labels = AppLocalizations.of(context);
print(labels.dates.month.february);
print(labels.templated.hello(firstName: "World"));
print(labels.templated.contact(Gender.male, lastName: "John"));

Regeneration

Because of the caching system of the build_runner, it can't detect if there is a change on the distant sheet and it can't know if a new generation is needed.

The version parameter of the @SheetLocalization annotation solves this issue.

Each time you want to trigger a new generation, simply increment that version number and call the build runner again.

Google Sheet format

You can see an example sheet here.

Global format

The file should have :

• A first header row
  • Column 0 : "Key"
  • then each supported language code ("en", "fr", ...)
• Following rows for labels
  • Column 0 : the label key (can be a hierarchy, separated by dots)
  • then each translation based on language code of the column

Ignoring a column

Sometimes you may need to add comments for translators. For this, simply add a column with a name between parenthesis and the column will be completely ignored by the generator.

Example :

Key	(Comments)	fr	en
example.man(Gender.male)	This is a man title on home page	homme	man
example.man(Gender.female)	This is a woman title on home page	femme	woman

Conditionals

It is pretty common to have variants of a label based on a condition (for example: Genders, Plurals, ...).

Simply duplicate your entries and end them with (<ConditionName>.<ConditionCase).

Example :

Key	fr	en
example.man(Gender.male)	homme	man
example.man(Gender.female)	femme	woman

See example for more details.

Plurals

The conditionals can be used the same way for plurals :

Example :

Key	fr	en
example.man(Plural.zero)	hommes	man
example.man(Plural.one)	homme	man
example.man(Plural.multiple)	hommes	men

From your Dart code, you can then define an extension :

extension PluralExtension on int {
  Plural plural() {
    if (this == 0) return Plural.zero;
    if (this == 1) return Plural.one;
    return Plural.multiple;
  }
}

See example for more details.

Dynamic labels

You can insert a {{KEY}} template into a translation value to have dynamic labels.

A Dart function will be generated to be used from your code.

/// Sheet
values.hello, "Hello {{first_name}}!"

/// Code
print(labels.values.hello(firstName: "World"));

Typed parameters

You can also add one of the compatible types (int, double, num, DateTime) to the parameter by suffixing its key with :<type>.

/// Sheet
values.price, "The price is {{price:double}}\$"

/// Code
print(labels.values.price(price: 10.5));

Formatted parameters

You can indicate how the templated value must be formatted by ending the value with a formatting rule in brackets [<rule-key>]. This can be particulary useful for typed parameters.

The available formatting rules depend on the type and generally rely on the intl package.

Type	rule-key	Generated code
double, int, num	decimalPercentPattern, currency, simpleCurrency, compact, compactLong, compactSimpleCurrency, compactCurrency, decimalPattern, percentPattern, scientificPattern	NumberFormat.<rule-key>(...)
DateTime	Any date format valid pattern	DateFormat('<rule-key>', ...).format(...)

Examples:

/// Sheet
values.price, "Price : {{price:double[compactCurrency]}}"

/// Code
print(labels.values.price(price: 2.00));

/// Sheet
values.today, "Today : {{date:DateTime[EEE, M/d/y]}}"

/// Code
print(labels.values.today(date: DateTime.now()));

Why ?

I find the Flutter internationalization tools not really easy to use, and I wanted a simple tool for sharing translations. Most solutions also use string based keys, and I wanted to generate pure dart code to improve permormance.