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How do you track stale CSV translations after source text changes?

A topic by Hickery68 created 3 days ago Views: 87 Replies: 3

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I’m evaluating a small tool idea; no app exists yet. It would compare two CSV localization exports and flag changed source strings whose translations stayed unchanged, plus added/removed keys.

Synthetic example: “Collect 5 herbs” becomes “Collect 8 herbs”, while the Ukrainian translation still says “Зберіть 5 трав”. The report would say “needs review”, not automatically declare an error: some wording changes need no translation update.

It would run offline in a browser, without translating or modifying files. I’m considering a one-time $15 price, but first want to understand the problem.

How often has this happened in your recent projects? How do you currently find and review the affected translations?

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mid3 days ago

Your example is more a case of poorly doing I18N. It is a mistake to put a variable like number_of_herbs inside of a translation. And it is a mistake to not just use codenames like STR_COLLECT_HERBS.

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Hickery683 days ago

Thanks, fair point. The changing herb count should be a parameter, and I should have shown that the proposed CSV has a stable key column.

The case I meant is an instruction changing under the same key, e.g. UI_INVENTORY_HINT: “Press Tab to open the inventory” becomes “Hold Tab to open the inventory”, while the translated cells remain unchanged. That would call for review, not an automatic correction.

I also see that gettext already has fuzzy review flags. Does your existing workflow catch these source-text changes, or have you run into a gap when working with CSV exports? I’d rather establish that before building another tool.

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Hickery683 days ago

Update: I built a small free beta so the idea can be tested as a working tool rather than discussed in the abstract:

https://hickery68.itch.io/localization-change-review

It is a single-file offline browser tool for wide CSV files with stable keys. It flags source-changed / translation-unchanged rows for human review, plus added and removed keys. It does not translate, modify files, or replace gettext/PO workflows that already provide reliable fuzzy flags.

If anyone tries it on a real CSV workflow, I’d especially value feedback on whether the report catches something your current process misses.

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