Support multiple configs for different languages in the same context

[jganser]

Multiple Configs

The issue at our company CONTACT Software is that we want to use the vale-vscode extension to help our developers and other less technical staff in writing good documentation. Depending on the project this has to be done in different languages, sometime multiple in the same project.

Our documentation is written in rst files and only the path to the file provides information about the language the file is in. For internal reasons we currently have to use the valeCLI approach at our company.

The current approach allows for only one config to be referenced and therefore only one language to be used.

The solution we are looking for is a way to provide e.g. patterns for selecting different vale config files (vale.ini files).

file path	language	example INI	pattern
doc/example_book/en/src/foo.rst	English	.../vale/vale_en.ini	**/doc/*/en/**/*.rst
doc/example_book2/en/src/foo.rst	English	.../vale/vale_en.ini	**/doc/*/en/**/*.rst
doc/example_book/de/src/foo.rst	German	.../vale/vale_de.ini	**/doc/*/de/**/*.rst
doc/example_book2/de/src/foo.rst	German	.../vale/vale_de.ini	**/doc/*/de/**/*.rst
doc/example_book2/de/src/bar/foo.rst	German	.../vale/vale_de.ini	**/doc/*/de/**/*.rst

Additionally

Additionally we would like the extension to allow vale checks even on single opened files (not as part of a workspace or folder) as some developers will use vscode only for writing documentation and some other IDE for coding, this will make it easier for less technical staff to jump into writing the documentation as well.

[jganser]

I am currently working on the topic as well. Expect a pull request soon =)

[jdkato]

The current approach allows for only one config to be referenced and therefore only one language to be used.

This isn't true. You can:

1. specify multiple sections within a single .vale.ini based on pattern-matching against the filename -- see Question: Writing .vale.ini to work around Hugo translations (article.fr.md) vale#245; or

2. simply create multiple configuration files and the closest one to the active file will be used.

[jganser]

Thanks for the fast reply 👍

Does this approach work with a global .vale.ini that lies somewhere on my system as well?

Are ** wildcards allowed in the specification of the paths?

[jganser]

The current approach allows for only one config to be referenced and therefore only one language to be used.

This isn't true. You can:

1. specify multiple sections within a single .vale.ini based on pattern-matching against the filename -- see Question: Writing .vale.ini to work around Hugo translations (article.fr.md) vale#245; or
2. simply create multiple configuration files and the closest one to the active file will be used.

The second approach wouldn't work as we want to have one repository holding style guidelines for all projects and therefor if possible no vale.ini files in the projects.

[jdkato]

If you use option 1, it doesn't matter where the configuration file is located.

You don't need to use wildcards; you're writing a pattern to match against certain file paths, not find them.

[jganser]

Still created the pull request with how I tackled the issue. If you have the time, have a look for reference, at least. =)