Enable typing English command names

[PADAone]

Hi, I’m one of the Japanese translators.
I have a suggestion for a new feature to support non-English users.

We Japanese (or perhaps also Chinese I’ve found this problem is specific to Japanese IME) users have two steps to type command in Command palette. For Japanese users, before typing the Enter key, we have to type Hiragana and then convert them to Kanji or Katakana.(three character types exist!!)

For example, when I want to “create a new note”, I have to type the Japanese full command name that is virtually impossible for us or mostly just type “新規”, which means “new” or “newly”, and then find related commands.

But typing command process is tricky. When I type “新規”, a list of the related commands shows up, then I’ll select the desired command. But selecting the desired command from a list requires me to move a cursor. It’s because the converting process also requires me to use arrow keys. So I can’t select commands with arrow keys now.

like this.

Besides, if localized words are not consistent like “新しい”, “新しく” or “新たに” all of which means “new” or “newly”, we cannot easily find all of the related commands or just the desired command. So I’ve adjusted command names recently to be easily searchable for Japanese users.

But I’ve noticed it would be better if we additionally could type English original commands. If I try to find a command to create something “new” like note, file, or pane, it’s better that I could type just “new” that doesn’t require me to convert any characters and I can quickly find the related commands. and I think this option will make non-English users less confused to type commands named by translation mistakes or inconsistent choice of localized words. English command names involving words like “new”, “note” or “file” are more consistently searchable and findable over all commands than localized commands.

Moreover, all of the Plugin commands are English. So, English commands can be more consistently searchable for non-English users. At the present, we sometimes get confused to type both English commands and Localized commands. (We are getting more and more Plugin commands, so it will be difficult to translate them all.)

So, please consider adding the feature that enables non-English users to type English command names and possibly displays those English command names next to or below the translated command names.

[PADAone]

Quick Switcher in VScode

[JowJo]

Same need for me (Chinese user), do you get any solution yet?

[xgdgsc]

Also needing this to find commands quickly while viewing local language clearly, as VSCode does well.

[AZLisme]

Same need for me either

[shsw228]

Any update?

I’m not familiar with plugin development, so I don’t know, but is this the kind of problem that can be solved with a community plugin?
If that’s the case, I think I should try developing it, and I’d like other people to think about it as well.

It would be best to get an official response, but that may not be possible. Unfortunately this thread has been abandoned for a year… No, 4 years.

[josephtribulat]

I was thinking the exact same thing. I’m not a developer at all, just a pastime tinkerer. I never tried to write a plug-in. However, if I can make myself useful, let me know.

The way I would try to do it would be simply that command palette searches both in the locale defined in the settings and in the original english. It wouldn’t have to display the english name of the command either. For example you would type “reload” and, in my case, “Recharger l’application sans enregistrer” would come up. I think that’s the way I saw it work in other applications.