Libres

String resources generation in Kotlin Multiplatform.

Important

Starting from version 2.0.0, this plugin no longer supports image sharing.
If you want to continue using it for strings, you’ll need to migrate your image sharing to another solution — for example, Compose Multiplatform Resources.

Why?
I like my implementation for strings — having direct access to String is much more convenient than various wrappers in alternative solutions.
However, I’m not happy with my implementation for images: it turned out to be unintuitive, dependent on the CocoaPods plugin on iOS, and rather unstable.
I don’t have the time or motivation to maintain and improve this functionality, so I decided to remove it.

Setup

// build.gradle.kts (project)

buildscript {
    dependencies {
        classpath("io.github.skeptick.libres:gradle-plugin:2.0.0-alpha02")
    }
}

// build.gradle.kts (module)

plugins {
    id("io.github.skeptick.libres")
}

libres {
    generatedClassName = "MainRes" // "Res" by default
    generateNamedArguments = true // false by default
    baseLocaleLanguageCode = "ru" // "en" by default
    camelCaseNamesForAppleFramework = false // false by default
}

Supported platforms

• Android, JVM, iOS, MacOS and JS in Kotlin Multiplatform projects.
• Pure Android or JVM projects with Kotlin.

Known issues

Usage

Resources must be stored in {yourSourceSetName}/libres

Multiplatform:

├── commonMain
│   ├── kotlin
│   └── libres
│       └── strings
│           ├── strings_en.xml
│           └── strings_ru.xml

Android or JVM:

├── main
│   ├── java
│   └── libres
│       └── strings
│           ├── strings_en.xml
│           └── strings_ru.xml

Strings

Strings are stored in usual for Android form in xml files.
The file postfix must contain language code for which these strings are intended. E.g.: my_app_strings_en.xml
For each of languages you can create several files and they will be merged during compilation.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <string name="simple_string">Hello!</string>
    <string name="string_with_arguments">Hello ${name}!</string>
    <plurals name="plural_string">
        <item quantity="one">resource</item>
        <item quantity="other">resources</item>
    </plurals>
</resources>

Kotlin:

MainRes.string.simple_string
MainRes.string.string_with_arguments.format(name = "John")
MainRes.string.plural_string.format(5)

Swift:

MainRes.shared.string.simple_string
// or MainRes.shared.string.simpleString if `camelCaseNamesForAppleFramework` enabled

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Note

In this example MainRes.string.simple_string will return a string, so for better localization support it's not recommended to store the value. Get it directly at the place where it's displayed in UI. This seems familiar but ability to work directly with strings instead of resource IDs can be misused.

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More about localization