SDK / Gutenblocks: include .pot file with built blocks

[jeherve]

Background

Jetpack blocks live as compiled files here:
https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/tree/branch-6.8-built/_inc/blocks

We then extract strings from those files on release, and generate this file from it:
https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/blob/branch-6.8-built/_inc/jetpack-strings.php

This is done here:
https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/blob/branch-6.8/gulpfile.babel.js#L197

However, the automatically generated file does not actually include any strings from the blocks right now. We have to go back to the 6.7 release to actually get strings from the blocks files:
https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/blob/branch-6.7-built/_inc/jetpack-strings.php
(you can see the files coming from the blocks files by looking at the comments, like // _inc/blocks/editor.js:25)

Something broke in the process in Jetpack 6.8. It seems the format of the strings outputted in the built files by the SDK has changed, so i18n-calypso can’t pick them up anymore.

Ideally, to work around this problem we could use the tools now available in Calypso to create a .pot file that should ship with the blocks we release on npm.

PR to fix this: #30303

From @akirk:

Gutenberg indeed has its own translatable string extractor: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/tree/master/packages/babel-plugin-makepot
And for Calypso we have https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/tree/master/packages/babel-plugin-i18n-calypso

What we’ll do there is to run babel on everything and makepot will extract the @wordpress/i18n style strings and the i18n-calypso plugin with the translate() style strings and then use the command line tool msgcat to merge the files
CALYPSO_ENV=production NODE_ENV=build_pot npm run build-client && find build/i18n-calypso -name \\*.pot | msgcat -f- -o calypso-strings.pot

This is not yet in production but will be available soon

Related: #28583
PR to fix this: #29429

Once the .pot file is available with the blocks, we'll need to update the way Jetpack extracts strings from the blocks to take that into account.

Related discussion: p1547026515746300-slack-jetpack-gutenberg

[simison]

Just to confirm it here I've understood correct; @zinigor you're working on this?

[zinigor]

Yes, sorry, I should have assigned this to myself. I'm going to publish a PR soon that fixes it in Jetpack.

[simison]

Higher level issue tracking progress here: #27814

[simison]

So this issue as it's written, is actually two separate tasks?

• generating pot files from SDK (PR Adding SDK POT file generation for Gutenberg blocks. #30303)
• fixing issues around string extractor (PR Framework: Use Babel plugins for i18n string extraction #29429)

Let's make sure to open a new one for the latter before closing this. Also ok to move to higher level issue #27814

[scruffian]

Closing, since the code lives in Jetpack this will happen a different way: Automattic/jetpack#11817