How to change localisation from storyboard to strings file

Question

TLDR: Xcode generated storyboards for each language, however I want the "old"(?) *.strings files. How?

I am currently in the process of localising my storyboards. After I enabled everything, Xcode generated another storyboard alongside the original (english) one for me to localise. I was surprised, I expected a Localizable.strings file, like the apple documentation still states as of April 3, 2021:

For storyboard and XIB interfaces, select the user interface files (files with a .storyboard or .xib filename extension). Xcode adds a strings file to the localization folder that contains the text to translate, as well as comments that describe the user interface components. For example, if you add German to an iOS app that uses storyboards, LaunchScreen.storyboard becomes a group containing a LaunchScreen.storyboard (Base) and LaunchScreen.strings (German) file.

I searched around the internet, in apple developer forums, watched both WWDC18 and 19 talks about localisation in Xcode, but did not find a single mention of translated storyboards.

After the initial translation, which works great due to the simplicity of just filling everything in, it gets frustrating however, since every layout change needs to be repeated for every language. This can't be intended, there must be a better way, right? Sadly, I didn't find anything. Even a hint to a piece of documentation regarding these storyboard copies would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

There are some screenshots of the possibility to convert these two formats via a dropdown, like the third picture in this post. However for me, there is no dropdown next to the language item when I click the storyboard, neither on the group, nor individual base or localised ones:

Is this a bug or am I missing something here? I am using macOS Big Sur 11.2.3 with Xcode 12.4 (12D4e).

Answer 1

Turns out, you need to use the Base Localization feature, the dropdown then appears and you can convert existing storyboards to *.strings files.