As a developer I would like to group text key entries (either by comment or group element)

[danielkellenbergernca]

In our project we have our trema file annotated with comments, in order to group it. For example:

  <!--
   COMMON KEYS
  -->
  <text key="common.language">
    [...]
  </text>

After update of any texts, all comments in the original trema file vanishes.

I see two general ways to support grouping:

1. Support of comments by not exporting the XMLDatabase directly to an XML file, but merge it with the existing XML file or store the comments as a field in XMLTextNode
2. Favorite solution: Instead of supporting comments, support grouping of text keys (maybe even supporting nested groups with key prefix). Example:

<group prefix="common">
  <text key="language">
   [...]
  </text>
</group>

will export it as common.language. Example with nested groups:

<group prefix="foo.bar">
  <group pref="baz">
     <text key="key">
     [...]
     </text>
  </group>
</group>

will export it as foo.bar.baz.key

[marcelstoer]

Thanks for a nice and complete description.

+1 for retaining XML comments, that's a pretty basic feature.
-1 for using XML comments to group keys in large Trema files as a way of organizing them. Split it into individual files instead. Spring for example supports applications with multiple message source base names out-of-the-box.
-1 for grouping, let alone nested, with extra XML elements as that has all kinds of nasty implications. CTRL + F in your favorite non-Trema-Eclipse XML editor searching for the key "foo.bar.baz.key" is just the most obvious one.

[danielkellenbergernca]

We already have 5(!) different trema files. So we know already how to split up files and having multiple message source base names. Anyway, thanks for the hint.
If groups are supported, the prefix should be optional.