TNTC - The .NET Translation Tool

TNTC is a command-line tool designed to help manage translations in .NET projects. It extracts strings from source code, manages translations across multiple languages, and provides a structured workflow for handling localization. It is loosely inspired by the original TNT project, but fully implemented in C# and supporting LLM-based translations via an OpenAI integration.

Features

• String Extraction: Automatically extracts translatable strings from C# source code
• Multi-language Support: Handles translations for multiple languages including Chinese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, among others
• Translation State Management: Tracks the state of translations (New, NeedsReview, NeedsReviewTranslation, Translated, Final)
• JSON-based Storage: Stores translations in a structured JSON format, easily manageable on the source control of your code-base
• Source Location Tracking: Keeps track of where translated strings were extracted from and used in the codebase

Installation

The tool requires .NET 9.0 or later. To install the tool globally, you can run:

dotnet tool install --global TNTC

You can also install the tool locally scoped to a project, see here for more information on installing dotnet tools.

Usage

Using TNTC on your source-code requires tagging all strings that need to be translated with a .t() method call.

For example:

var translatableString = "This string will be translated".t();  //Note the .t() added after the string
var fixedString        = "This string will be not translated";  

Interpolated strings can also be translated, but require a slightly different syntax to be able to capture them before they're interpolated:

var interpolatedString = t($"Today is {DateTimeOffset.UtcNow:u}");  //Note the t($"...") is added around the interpolated string

Command Line Commands

TNTC provides several commands:

Extract Command

tntc extract <projectFolder>

Extracts all strings from source files and updates translations. The tool will look for any folder with a .tnt folder as a project to be translated.

Note: This command requires an OpenAI API key to be set in the environment variable OPENAI_API_KEY for automatic translation functionality.

# Example with API key
export OPENAI_API_KEY='your-api-key-here'
tntc extract <projectFolder>

Source files are scanned for translatable strings using the Roslyn compiler.

Upgrade from TNT Command

tntc upgrade-from-tnt <projectFolder>

Upgrades existing TNT translations to the new JSON format. This is useful when migrating from an older version of the tool.

Translation Files Folder Structure

• .tnt/: Configuration directory for translation settings
  • translation-{language}.json: Translation files for each supported language
  • extra-sources.json: Configuration for additional source directories
• .tnt-content/: Directory containing the final translation files used by the application
  • Contains the processed and finalized translations ready for use