simplest-i18n

The Simplest Universal i18n Solution

§ Preface

In most cases, internationalization is actually translating your website into English
Which means that you might not need a cumbersome framework to implement this
And this tiny repo is for you!

§ Features

• Support browsers and Node.js
• No dependencies (compressed source code < 0.5KB, extremely simple and comprehensible)
• Does not rely on any framework (React / Vue / Angular / ...) or any bundler (Webpack / Parcel / Rollup / ...)
• No tedious and verbose documentation (Just this README)

§ Installation

⊙ NPM

npm i simplest-i18n -S

⊙ CDN

<script src="//unpkg.com/simplest-i18n"></script>

§ Usage

import i18n from 'simplest-i18n'
 
const t = i18n({
  locale: navigator.language.toLowerCase(), // e.g. here yields 'en-us'
  locales: [
    // it is recommended that set your mother tongue as the first locale (e.g. Simplified Chinese for me)
    'zh-cn',
    'en-us',
    'ja'
  ]
})
 
console.log(
  t(
    '你好',
    'Hello',
    'こんにちは'
  )
) // outputs 'Hello'

---

There are code examples for React and Vue in examples/
Check it out and run it with the following directives:

>_ git clone https://github.com/kenberkeley/simplest-i18n.git
>_ npm i
>_ npm run react (or npm run vue)

§ Merits

⊙ Keep in context

// this demonstrates how most popular i18n frameworks do
const messages = {
  en: {
    greeting: 'Hello {name}, long time no see'
  },
  cn: {
    greeting: '你好，{name}，好久不见了'
  },
  ja: {
    greeting: 'こんにちは、{name}、長い時間は見ていない'
  }
}
*****************************************************************
// in another file (lose direct sight of the original translations)
render () {
  return (
    <h1>{
      format('greeting', { name: this.state.name })
    }</h1>
  )
}

// this is how we do with ES6 template literals
render () {
  const { name } = this.state
  return (
    <h1>{
      t(
        `你好，${name}，好久不见`,
        `Hello ${name}, long time no see`,
        `こんにちは、${name}、長い時間は見ていない`
      )
    }</h1>
  )
}

From now on, naming things and duplicate keys would not bother you anymore
(the key is actually the original text written in your mother tongue)
Before that, you might have to use a kinda nonsense module1.page1.greeting (namespace) to avoid these problems

⊙ Flexible

How do we solve the pluralization problem?

• Method 0: Simple and crude: appending (s) / (es) directly

render () {
  const { num } = this.state
  return (
    <span>{
      t(
        `我有 ${num} 个苹果`,
        `I have ${num} apple(s)`
      )
    }</span>
  )
}

• Method 1: Write your own helper function

/**
 * @param  {String} nouns 
 * @param  {String} num 
 * @return {String} 
 * e.g.
 * pluralize('apple|apples', 3) => '3 apples' 
 * pluralize('man|men', 1) => '1 man'
 */
export default function pluralize(nouns, num) {
  return `${num} ${nouns.split('|')[+!(num === 1)]}`
}

• Method 2: Search plural in npmjs.com and pick one

You can control everything in the project! No blackboxes! All functions are pure, simple and composable!

§ Tips

• If you are using Webpack and tired of importing t everywhere, try ProvidePlugin instead (window.t = t is ok as you like it)