Develop Reference

Why my android studio doesn't support typing tamil language?

I am new to android studio. I am trying to create an application with localisation(Tamil). When I paste my Tamil language into android editor the font is not appearing as it should. Here is the Screen shot of my android studio
Already surfed lot here. There is no answer for this issue. It would be great if anyone help on this.

When i tried to generate that same condition I came to know that you haven't added that string named "app" in your default locale i.e. in strings.xml and you are directly trying to add a translation for it.
When u hover to that error it states:
app is transalted here but not found in default locale.
First add(create) that string in your strings.xml file and then try to add it in your strings.xml (tamil) file.

Follow these steps:
First go to your project's res folder --> then open values folder --> then open "strings.xml" file and remove all text inside it and paste the text shown below:
<resources>
<string name="app_name">My Application</string>
<string name="tamil_app_name">ஆங்கில தட்டச்சு வழியாக நம் மொழி</string>
</resources>

Because you have to create a Tamil language string file to set your language. please do the following steps-:
1) Firstly declare all the strings in main strings.xml
2) Then create the string file according to your language choice, Example strings.xml(ta)
3) (ta) is the language code accordingly.
4) The Strings that you have in your main string file convert them into particular language which you want then paste it into the new created String file.

Android Studio string hello_world not present in string.xml file

I'm new to Android app development, trying to follow an intro book on the subject. After creating a blank project, I'm instructed to open the string.xml file, which is supposed to contained the element <string name="hello_world">Hello World!</string> in order to edit the default text of the TextView object. However, the file doesn't contain this element. It only contains:
Also, the book only shows an activity_main.xml layout file, whereas I'm seeing both an activity_main.xml and a content_main.xml file.
Perhaps this is a version issue? My install of the Android SDK is on Windows 10 with the latest API 23, whereas I think the book was published before API 23 was released.

The default project template has probably changed since the book was written.
Try creating a new project, and when asked, choose "Empty Activity" instead of "Blank Activity". This should only include activity_main.xml
This doesn't include the hello_world string in the resources however, so just add it yourself by adding a line with
<string name="hello_world">Hello World!</string>
to the strings.xml
Moreover, they decided to break the convention they had been going with for the default template. There is a TextView in the activity_main.xml layout, but it uses a hardcoded string, rather than a string resource.
If you modify the text attribute of this TextView to: #string/hello_world, you should be able to mirror the desired behavior that the book is asking for.
Here's a page straight out from the official Android docs on String resources. It may help you understand it better: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/string-resource.html

How to import/export Android string resource to Excel for localization?

I use Android Studio in app development. I want to translate strings by exporting/importing the Android language resources (strings.xml) to Excel file (xlsx). What is the best way to do it?

If anyone else needed the answer,
from res -> strings -> right click-> Open Translations Editor. Select data/variable you need then copy and paste data from Translations Editor to excel . done.

Since CTRL+A not working now in the android studio.
There is one way to convert the android strings file to CSV and then translate it with the help of google translator and then again convert back to XML.
https://www.skydevelopers.net/blog/2-best-ways-to-translate-the-android-strings-file/
here is a blog in detail

Export Strings resource file to csv
Get its content translated(probably from google translate)
convert back the Translated file to Strings.xml(android string resource file)
I used http://convertcsv.com/csv-to-xml.htm this website for converting csv file to strings resource file
need to mention Custom output template to convert it to strings resource file
<string name="{f1}">{f2}</string>
put this in template section provided
website also displays the desired converted output file

As many others pointed out, pressing Ctrl+A in the Translations Editor doesn't work since Android Studio 3.2
I work for a company that outsources translations constantly, so we need to convert android strings to and from xls files.
The only solution that worked for us reliably is this fork of the older android-lang-tool. Just build with maven and run the jar.
It exports strings, string-arrays, plurals and their key-values to an xls file. It even exports the comments.

I would suggest the best tool for android app string localization is the Translations Editor that is inbuilt into Android Studio.
The reason this is a great approach is you are able to make the process both easier for translators and less prone to errors. The XML string files in Android Studio support XLIFF notations that are a standardized method to aid string localization.
By utilizing XLIFF notation in your XML string files you can do the following to help the translators:
Provide additional context for declared strings
Mark message parts that should not be translated
To use XLIFF in your Android string XML files you need to include the XLIFF 1.2 namespace:
<resources xmlns:xliff="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:1.2">
Here are a few examples of strings from the android localization documentation:
<resources xmlns:xliff="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:1.2">
<!-- Example placeholder for a special unicode symbol -->
<string name="star_rating">Check out our 5
<xliff:g id="star">\u2605</xliff:g>
</string>
<!-- Example placeholder for a for a URL -->
<string name="app_homeurl">
Visit us at <xliff:g id="application_homepage">http://my/app/home.html</xliff:g>
</string>
<!-- Example placeholder for a name -->
<string name="prod_name">
Learn more at <xliff:g id="prod_gamegroup">Game Group</xliff:g>
</string>
<!-- Example placeholder for a literal -->
<string name="promo_message">
Please use the "<xliff:g id="promotion_code">ABCDEFG</xliff:g>” to get a discount.
</string>
</resources>
To access the Translations Editor in Android Studio, select Open Translations Editor from the context menu for your XML string file (ie. strings.xml) in your project tree (see below).

Convert your strings.xml to csv xml-to-csv
Import to Google Sheets
Translate using the formula =GOOGLETRANSLATE(B2, "auto", "de")
Generate output in another column using =CONCATENATE("<string name=",char(34),A2,char(34),">",C2,"</string>") where A2 is the resource_ID and C2 is the translated string
Copy the whole output column and paste inside the <resource>...</resource> tag

As Saad Mahmud answered, you can copy from the translation editor (ctrl+a ctrl+c) and then paste into a spreadsheet.
You can copy it back from a spreadsheet to the translation editor by only copying the "default value" and other languages columns, click on the topmost default value and paste (ctrl+v).
It also works with subsets (both subsets of rows and columns), as long as they are next to each other.
Be aware that empty cells in the spreadsheet will not blank out the translation in the editor, it will leave the current untouched.
Also be careful that you haven't added or removed any translation keys since the spreadsheet was created...

Export or copy to excel only supported in Windows PC.
Still not yet in MAC

As many others pointed out, you can't simply copy and paste translations from and into Translations Editor since Android Studio 3.2.
The simplest solution I found was saving the Excel file with translations as CSV file and then converting it to XML with regex and vice versa.
To "import" translations the steps:
Save xls/xlsx file with key in first column and translation in second column as CSV file (If you have file with non-ANSI caracters use Google sheets, because Excel doesn't support saving in CSV using utf-8)
Open csv file in text editor which supports "find and replace" with regex (eg. Notepad++)
Open "find and replace" and set regex search
Search ^([^,]*),(.*)$ and replace it with <string name="$1">$2</string>
Copy file to string resources file between tag
Fix possible mistakes
You can use similar method in reverse for "export". Use <string.+name="(.*)".*>(.*)</string> for finding and $1,$2 for replacing. But it only works if every string tag in in one line.

NOTE: If your res folder doesn't contians strings.xml then Android Studio won't show "Open Editor" in top right corner of the strings.xml file(Open the file). In my case all my string res files are named like strings_feature.xml
To copy/paste from Translations Editor use Android Studio 3.2 Version and below. It allows copy/paste of full column.

Compare Android String xml files

I have two string xml for two different languages, I would like to know the different between those xml files.
For example, there is one xml for English,
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<string name="app_name">Keep Accounts</string>
<string name="insertNewOne">Insert Accounts</string>
<string name="browseRecord">Browse Records</string>
<string name="set">Setting</string>
</resources>
And another xml for other language,
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<string name="app_name">Example</string>
<string name="insertNewOne">Example</string>
<string name="browseRecord">Example</string>
<string name="dateNoColon">Example</string>
</resources>
We can see the difference is xml for English has element string name="set", and the other has not. On the other hand, the xml file for other language has element string name="dateNoColon" but the xml for English has not.
In this case, I would like to know the English xml lacks the element string name="dateNoColon", and other xml lacks the element string name="set".

Android Studio has translations editor starting of 0.8.12 version. You can find there missing translation strings.
You can enable check for missing translations in Lint tool. There are "Missing translation" and "Extra translation" checks.
Extra translation If a string appears in a specific language translation file, but there is no corresponding string in the default locale, then this string is probably unused. (It's technically possible that your application is only intended to run in a specific locale, but it's still a good idea to provide a fallback.).
Incomplete translation If an application has more than one locale, then all the strings declared in one language should also be translated in all other languages.

Suppose if the device is set to Other language, Android will look for title in the otherlanguage.xml file in value folder. But if no such string is included in that file, Android will fall back to the default, and will load title in English from the english.xml file.
For more detail go to http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/localization.html#using-framework

I wrote a small tool for that: resdiff.
Check it out! https://github.com/danijoo/resdiff

Try sorting both files using some perl or bash script or something like that for example, using bash:
sort temp.txt -o temp.txt
and then look at the diff for example using DiffMergeit.

Use Android Lint to find both incomplete translations i.e. strings missing in a language variant and extra translations i.e. strings introduced in a language variant but missing in the default locale.
In Android Studio you can run Lint (and some other analysis tools) with Analyze -> Inspect Code.

Update Android Strings.xml with Ruby script

I'd like to use a Ruby based script to go through the strings.xml file in Android to update certain values.
For example:
This is the original xml file
<resources>
<string name="accounts">accounts</string>
</resources>
I want it to become this after running the ruby script:
<resources>
<string name="accounts">my accounts</string>
</resources>
I'm completely new to ruby, but I was able to get it to read a xml file....just not sure how to update the values.
(In case you are wondering, I'm doing this so I can white-label my app and sell it to businesses. This will help speed up the process a lot.)

I found a way to do it.
require 'rubygems'
require 'nokogiri'
#opens the xml file
io = File.open('/path/to/my/strings.xml', 'r')
doc = Nokogiri::XML(io)
io.close
#this line looks for something like this: "<string name="nameOfStringAttribute">myString</string>"
doc.search("//string[#name='nameOfStringAttribute']").each do |string|
#this line updates the string value
string.content = "new Text -- IT WORKED!!!!"
#this section writes back to the original file
output = File.open('/path/to/my/strings.xml', "w")
output << doc
output.close
end

Be warned, if you are using the resources from the strings.xml file from the android code, using the R.string class, then modifying the XML externally will not work.
The R.string class is created when you compile your application, so if you modify the XML file after compilation, the changes will not take effect in your application.

Super helpful! For posterity's sake...I opted for:
doc = Nokogiri::XML(File.open('path_to/strings.xml')))
doc.search("//string[#name='my_string_attribute']").first.content = "my new string value"
File.open('path_to/strings.xml', 'w') { |f| f.print(doc.to_xml) }
That works well when your string key (name) is unique (which Android Studio enforces so you can trust that they will be). You can throw as many string edits in the middle there and then save the changes without worrying about messing up any other values.