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Kibana i18n Proposal - 20160726
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KibanaProposalArchive-2.md

Kibana Globalization Proposal

Purpose

  • Provide translation readiness on the Kibana web-facing UI
  • Delivered in a phased approach

Phase 1

i18n Plugin

  • Manages the language translations for Kibana

  • Responsible for loading translated content per language

  • The translations file are JSON files with a flat keyspace, where the keys are unique. This uniqueness between translation plugins could be achieved by prefixing the keys with the plugin name. The key signifies the translation ID which would be referenced in translatable files (like JS, HTML etc.).

  • The key value is the translation string

  • Example translation JSON file

kibana-en.json

    {
        "CORE-WELCOME_MESSAGE": "is loading. Give me a moment here. I'm loading a whole bunch of code. Don't worry, all this good stuff will be cached up for next time!",
        "CORE-WELCOME_ERROR": "Kibana did not load properly. Check the server output for more information."
    }
  • Core Kibana plugins like ‘kibana’ and ‘status_page’ could come with their own English translations bundled in
  • API:
    • Register translations:
      • registerTranslations(<absolute_path_to_translation_file>)
      • The translation file will be bundled into one translation file per language and stored in the Kibana data directory
    • Fetch the list of currently supported languages:
      • getRegisteredTranslationLanguages()
      • Returns a list of all languages as language codes for which translations are registered
    • Fetch a specific language translated content bundle:
      • getRegisteredLanguageTranslations(<language_code>)
      • Returns a JSON object of all registered translations for the language code specified
  • Deliverable:
    • Translate the start-up message (“Kibana is loading ...”)in the Jade template (https://github.com/elastic/kibana/blob/master/src/ui/views/ui_app.jade)
    • Plugin Unit tests
    • Jade template verification of translation strings:
      • Enforce a pattern to be used. For example a translate(<key>) function in the Jade template. A tool can then be used to find such pattern and extract the keys to file
      • The keys in the key file(s) would then be checked against the language translation files registered
    • Welcome message and start-up error message are registered with the plugin during dev process

Phase 2

Kibana Plugin Install Time Hook

  • A plugin install time hook in Kibana which can be called by a plugin during its installation phase
  • This capability can be used by the i18n plugin to set a context which can be called during the installation of the translation plugin
  • This enables the i18n plugin to set register translations as the context and therefore means all translation plugins automatically register their translation during install time
  • Prototype as follows: https://github.com/elastic/kibana/pull/7613
  • Deliverable:
    • Translation plugin registers its translations during the plugin installation

i18n Plugin (update)

  • Set the plugin install context to call register translations
  • Deliverable:
    • Translation plugin registers its translations during the plugin installation

Translation Plugin Boilerplate

  • A boilerplate of a Kibana plugin which contains the minimal of actual code to enable registration of translations with the i18n plugin
  • The translation plugin indirectly call the i18n register translations through the install time hook (bin/kibana-plugin install)
  • The plugin contains a translation JSON file per language
  • An example translation plugin structure : https://github.com/Bargs/management-es
  • Deliverables:
    • A template that localization engineers can use to produce language translations and integrate them in Kibana in an easy manner
    • Translation plugin registers its translations during the plugin installation

Phase 3

i18n Plugin (update)

  • Add REST API for getting all translations for a language:
    • GET /i18n/translations ==> returns the English (or German or whatever) translations negotiated with the browser HTTP header “accept-language” priority list compared against the languages supported
  • Deliverable:
    • Automated API tests pass
    • Make the translations available on the client side:
      • 2 approaches:
        • Use current bundle mechanism:
        • Client side directly calls API and loads the JSON payload
        • Both approaches will decide the language to be served up by comparing browser languages against the translation supported languages
      • PoC:
        • View sample of angular constructs can load translations
        • Sample HTML View can load translations

Phase 4

Translation Plugin Generator

  • Tool which generates a translation plugin
  • Localization engineer should only need to add translation file(s) within the plugin directory and call Kibana plugin install
  • Deliverable:
    • Translation plugin is generated which can be installed as plugin in Kibana with translation files added

Tool for Verifying All Translations have Translatable Strings

  • Grunt run task tool that tests all translatable strings have a translation (i.e. all translation IDs have a corresponding translation string)
  • This could be run by CI to verify globalization end-to-end capability
  • A possible solution:
    • https://github.com/angular-translate/grunt-angular-translate.Searches all view and JS scripts to find angular-translate calls and extracts keys to file
    • For non-angular constructs: Enforce a pattern to be used. For example a translate(<key>) function in the Jade template. A tool can then be used to find such pattern and extract the keys to file
    • The keys in the key file(s) would then be checked against the language translation files registered
  • Deliverable:
    • Tool can be run by CI to verify translation IDs have a corresponding translation string

Translation Identifiers Added to Kibana UI

  • Ids are added to the relevant UI content (HTML, JS etc.)
  • English (en) translation file(s) are generated for the Ids defined
  • Approach for translating UI content:
    • Angular UI portion:
      • Use angular-translate for simplicity of the UI template resources, taking advantage of angular idioms.
    • Non-Angular portion:
      • Source and translations are in basic JSON format, and the same file can be consumed without the angular-translate module. For example, the Node server side can use the JSON format.
      • Enforce a pattern to be used. For example a translate(<key>) function in the Jade template.

BEFORE (HTML)

    <div class="sidebar-list">
    …

    <div class="sidebar-list-header">
        <h5>Selected Fields</h5>
    </div>

AFTER (HTML)

    <div class="sidebar-list">
    …

    <div class="sidebar-list-header">
        <h5 translate="FIELDS_SELECTEDFIELDS"></h5>
    </div>

BEFORE (Chart)

    return new MetricAggType({
      title: 'Count',

AFTER (Chart) - non-Angular

    var uiStrings = …; // loading TBD
    return new MetricAggType({
      title: uiStrings.METRIC_COUNT,
  • Deliverables:
    • Tool can be run by CI to verify translation IDs have a corresponding translation string
    • Localization engineers can start generating translation plugins for different languages

Blockers

  • Need an approach for the jade template verification
  • How and when do the core plugins register their translations since they're never "installed"?

Open Questions/Issues

  • Translation of user data

Authors

  • Martin Hickey: @hickeyma
  • Scott Russell: @DTownSMR
  • Shikha Srivastava: @shikhasriva
  • Steven R. Loomis: @srl295
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