Many inconsistencies make this package unusable

[lorenaramonda]

Hello,
this repo has a lot of non-working feature.

First of all the config file generated into the root vue-i18n-extract.config.ts is never taken in consideration, when you run the command you always have to pass all the flags in there.
Also, is not clear if the flag can be used all together or not.

But the main issue is that the flags doesn't work:

1. --separator cannot be deactivated, even if you put an empty string it will still consider . as separator, and false is not allowed
2. --noEmptyTranslation doesn't work, assuming that the language passed is the that should have the empty values initialized with the key value, I tried many pattern --noEmptyTranslation=en | --noEmptyTranslation='en' | --noEmptyTranslation 'en' but nothing seems to work and my en file is still fulfilled with keys with empty values
3. --remove is not always working, I assumed that if a string is modified therefore non-existing any longer in its original version, this one should be removed from all the files, when set to true and run the script says The unused keys have been removed from your language files. but it doesn't work (at least it seems it is not for older strings or some particular conditions). It seems it worked once but then I couldn't reproduce it only by passing the flag. It works if I create a TS file and I call the createI18NReport function with the proper option
4. --missingTranslationString is also not doing anything (what should it do? add the string defined here as value for every new strings? not working anyway)

Could you at least tell us if this package is expected to be updated in the near future or is it more of a dead end? It's important for us to know whether it's a good candidate for adoption or not.

[harisenbon]

Hey @lorenaramonda I feel similarly, but looking through the issues has given me at least some good guidance.

1. Add the package from the latest commit, not the latest release. Latest Release is missing a lot
2. Check out this issue on how to set up the config file
3. The language for noEmptyTranslation is the file name, so in the case of en it HAS to be en.js. I gave up and just use *

[lorenaramonda]

Hello @harisenbon thanks a lot for providing insights! ✨

So I tried this:

1. add the package in this way: "vue-i18n-extract": "https://github.com/Spittal/vue-i18n-extract"
2. create the config file as I mentioned here: Config file not loading correctly when using "type": "module" in package.json #225 (comment)
3. update noEmptyTranslation to have value en.*

and then run npx vue-i18n-extract but..:

 npx vue-i18n-extract
[vue-i18n-extract] Error: Required configuration vueFiles is missing.
    at createI18NReport (/Users/lorena/Sites/storyfront/node_modules/vue-i18n-extract/dist/vue-i18n-extract.umd.js:335:30)

is still not working 😭

Plus if I set
--separator=''
I get
[vue-i18n-extract] CACError: option --separator value is missing
therefore I assume is not possible to disable the separator?? (unless you use an awful workaround like --separator ###NOSEPARATOR### that is something hopefully will never be used in a string though it's not a very strong validation).

and if i try to use
--missingTranslationString='__MISSING_TRANSLATION__'
is returning me an error:
[vue-i18n-extract] CACError: Unknown option '--missingTranslationString'.

And noEmptyTranslation is not working neither with what you suggest`.

Everything is quite frustrating at this point 😔