NativePHP Mobile Locales#

Declare the locales your NativePHP mobile app supports — once — and have the plugin wire the platform-native configuration on every iOS and Android build.

Build-time only. This plugin runs during php artisan native:run. It writes native config files into the generated iOS and Android projects. It does not run at runtime, ship translations, switch locales, or persist user preferences.

Requirements#

• PHP 8.3+
• Laravel >= 12
• NativePHP Mobile v3 or v4

Features#

• Single source of truth for supported locales — one config array, both platforms.
• iOS: writes CFBundleLocalizations into Info.plist.
• Android: generates res/xml/locales_config.xml and references it from AndroidManifest.xml.
• Automatic format conversion (BCP 47 in, platform-native out).
• Idempotent — repeated builds produce the same output.

Installation#

composer require developernauts/nativephp-mobile-locales

Register the plugin with NativePHP:

php artisan native:plugin:register developernauts/nativephp-mobile-locales

Publish the config file:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=nativephp-mobile-locales-config

Configuration#

config/mobile-locales.php

return [
    'locales' => [
        'en',
        'en-GB',
    ],
];

Use BCP 47 tags (en, pt-BR, en-GB). Region subtags are optional. Tags are normalized automatically — en_gb, EN-GB, and en-GB resolve to the same entry.

Native Platform Language Support#

The plugin automatically syncs your configured locales into the native iOS and Android projects so the operating system can properly recognise which languages your app supports — without any manual Xcode or Android Studio configuration.

iOS App Store Language Display#

iOS reads the CFBundleLocalizations entries written to Info.plist and surfaces them in Settings and on the App Store listing.

Android App Language Support#

Android 13+ uses locales_config.xml to populate the per-app language picker in system Settings, allowing users to override the app language independently of the system locale.

When are locale files generated?#

The sync commands run automatically as a pre_compile plugin hook during:

• php artisan native:run (iOS and Android)
• php artisan native:build (iOS)
• php artisan native:bundle (iOS and Android)

After native:install --force the native project files are reset to their template state. The locale files will be restored on the next build/run/bundle.

Generating locale files locally#

To inspect or verify the generated files without running a full build, the sync commands can be run directly:

# Sync all platforms
php artisan nativephp-mobile-locales:sync
 
# iOS only — updates nativephp/ios/NativePHP/Info.plist and nativephp/ios/NativePHP-simulator-Info.plist
php artisan nativephp-mobile-locales:sync-ios
 
# Android only — creates nativephp/android/app/src/main/res/xml/locales_config.xml
php artisan nativephp-mobile-locales:sync-android
 
# Android manifest only — adds android:localeConfig to AndroidManifest.xml
php artisan nativephp-mobile-locales:sync-android-manifest

How it works#

On every build, the plugin reads the locales array and writes the platform-native equivalent into the generated native projects.

iOS#

nativephp/ios/NativePHP/Info.plist

<key>CFBundleLocalizations</key>
<array>
    <string>en</string>
    <string>en-GB</string>
</array>

Android#

nativephp/android/app/src/main/res/xml/locales_config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<locale-config xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <locale android:name="en"/>
    <locale android:name="en-rGB"/>
</locale-config>

nativephp/android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml

<application android:localeConfig="@xml/locales_config" ...>

BCP 47 (en-GB) is automatically converted to Android's resource qualifier format (en-rGB). Keep your config in BCP 47.

Testing#

composer test

The test suite covers locale normalisation, BCP 47 → platform-native format conversion, XML write/update logic for all three config files, platform routing, and idempotency.

Notes#

• Per-app language preferences on Android 13+ require both locales_config.xml and the manifest reference — both handled here.
• iOS reads CFBundleLocalizations at build time; rebuild after changing the config.
• An empty locales array is a valid no-op.
• Only two-part BCP 47 tags are supported (en, en-GB). Three-part tags such as zh-Hans-CN are rejected with an InvalidArgumentException.

License#

The MIT License (MIT). See LICENSE.md.