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Multilingual support is coming soon to AsBuiltReport

Today I can announce that one of the most requested features for AsBuiltReport is currently in pre-release, with testing underway to bring multilingual support to the AsBuiltReport framework.

multilingual

Key Features in Development

🌐 Comprehensive Localization Framework

  • Implementation of PowerShell's built-in localization capabilities

  • Option for differing UI localization and report localization

📝 Standardised Translation Structure

  • Standardised folder structures for simple multilingual support adoption

  • Support for resource files containing translated strings for AsBuiltReport core and report modules

  • Automated string extraction and translation

💻 New Commandline Parameters

  • Dynamic language selection - language selection is determined by what each AsBuiltReport module supports

  • Support for standard locale codes (en-US, es-ES, fr-FR, de-DE, etc.)

  • Fallback mechanism to ensure reports generate even with incomplete translations

⚙ Report Module Integration

  • Documentation and templates for new and existing report modules to add multilingual support

  • Backward compatibility ensuring existing English-only workflows continue to work

  • Progressive enhancement allowing modules to adopt localization incrementally

  • in General
  • 5 min read

The future of AsBuiltReport

In my previous post I shared how I came to start AsBuiltReport and my reasons for doing so. It's been a few years since its inception and some of you may be asking what does the future hold for the project?

Before I delve into what may lie ahead, let me take a moment to reflect on the project's progression so far, by extending a sincere thank you to all the contributors who have given their time and effort to this project. Whether you have contributed code, reported bugs, provided feedback, written a blog post, or simply participated in discussions, your efforts have not gone unnoticed.

  • in General
  • 3 min read

The history of AsBuiltReport

The Beginning

Back in 2017, having worked on designing and implementing VMware solutions for almost a decade, I became frustrated with having to repeatedly produce as-built documentation for my virtualisation projects.

At the time, I was designing and implementing 2-3 VMware solutions per month. Each solution would be designed using numerous technology partners, each with their own range of compute, storage, networking and backup technologies.

My methods to create as-built documentation was arduous, time consuming and error prone. It often involved extracting information using a combination of vendor supplied tools and community developed scripts, and manually transposing information from the vCenter console into a Word document. It was tedious and often resulted in a poorly constructed and formatted document.

It was also around this time that I realised I had a strong desire to learn PowerShell after seeing many of my co-workers starting to write scripts to automate simple, repeatable tasks. Until this moment, I had never taken the time to completely understand the fundamentals of PowerShell, nor had I worked to develop and expand my knowledge in any form of scripting or automation.

As a result, I saw this as an opportunity to learn and employ PowerShell automation to ease my pain and frustrations with producing as-built documentation. And so began my mission to create AsBuiltReport!