BundleMonkey is a GUI tool to edit the resource bundles of a Tentackle application. The application automatically retrieves the bundles from the database instead of the application's jars, if the tentackle-i18n module is part of the module- or classpath. Whenever the application finds the corresponding bundle in the database, the database version will be used. If there is no such database bundle, the application's resource bundle is used.
In order to use the database-backed bundles (a.k.a stored bundles), the application's resource bundles must be pushed to the database with the maven goal tentackle-i18n:push. The application's resources cover at least the default locale (fallback locale) and one or more other locales. Those resources are maintained by the developers via the standard tools provided by most common IDEs. Whenever the resources are changed, the push-goal should be invoked to update the database bundles. Important: changes already made to the translations stored in the database are left untouched, since only new keys are pushed.
With BundleMonkey, not only the application's languages can be maintained, but as many additional locales as needed. Because those translations are only stored in the database, the developers are relieved from maintaining them in the application's resources.
Optionally, changes made in the database may be copied back to the application's resource bundles with the maven goal tentackle-i18n:pull. It compares the resource bundles with their database counterpart and updates the source code accordingly. However, it will only affect the locales already defined in the application, not the additional locales found in the database! By pulling the changes back to the resource bundles, they become part of the VCS changelog as well.
Although the application's resource bundles consistency is already checked during the build phase via the tentackle-check:bundles maven goal, the database bundles should be verified on a regular basis with the maven goal tentackle-i18n:verify, at least once before the application is deployed. This ensures that there are no missing translations that would lead to a MissingResourceException during runtime. Notice that the application will switch to the database bundle even for the default locale, as soon as it finds a corresponding database-backed bundle. As a result, the database bundle must provide the same bundle keys as the application's resources.
Optionally, the tentackle-i18n:cleanup can be invoked to remove any obsolete bundles or translations in the database. This may happen after refactorings or whatever reasons. The plugin ensures, however, that there are no pending warnings to avoid dropping bundles that were not refactored accidently. This can easily be performed by BundleMonkey as well (via the tree-tables context menu, see below).
BundleMonkey is usually installed by downloading and unpacking the platform specific jlink ZIP-archive:
It is invoked via a start script found in the bin folder (bundlemonkey.sh or bundlemonkey.cmd, depending on the platform).
When the application starts the first time, the database drivers and connections can be configured by pressing the edit backends button in the login window.
Important: BundleMonkey needs read/write access to the following Tentackle database objects:
- modification
- bundle
- bundlekey
- object_sequence_id
It is recommended to create specific database users for BundleMonkey with restricted access privileges to those objects only.
The main view shows the bundles in a tree table at the left side, whereas the translations for the locales are edited at the right side.
On the top, there is one radio button for each available locale. This allows the user to enable only those locales, that he/she is responsible for. The settings are remembered in the preferences and apply to all maintained applications.
At the bottom there is a text field to filter the bundles in the navigation tree. Pressing F2 navigates to that field and/or invokes the filter. Shift-F2 clears the filter. A leading ! or - negates the filter.
Another text field is provided for searching. Pressing F3 navigates to that field and/or starts the search. Pressing F3 again moves to focus to the next match. Pressing Shift-F3 moves backwards to the previous match. Again, a leading ! or - negates the search.
By default, filtering and searching is not case-sensitive. This can be changed with a toggle button next to the search field.
The changes are kept in memory and persisted when the save button is pressed. The items in the tree table are colorized as follows:
- blue background: modified
- yellow background: missing
More details are display in the notes column. Please notice the refactoring options via the tree table's context menu.
Of course, all features of Tentackle FX applications apply as well.