i18next-http-backend VS moment

A React.js based i18next setup with in-memory translation resources could also look very similar to the above example, so let's raise the bar a little bit and see what a setup with lazy loading translations like with i18next-http-backend looks like:

The next package will load the values depending on the language returned by the language detector.

import i18next from 'i18next' import I18NextVue from 'i18next-vue' import LanguageDetector from 'i18next-browser-languagedetector' import Backend from 'i18next-http-backend' export const i18nextPromise = i18next // i18next-http-backend // loads translations from your server // https://github.com/i18next/i18next-http-backend .use(Backend) // detect user language // learn more: https://github.com/i18next/i18next-browser-languageDetector .use(LanguageDetector) // init i18next // for all options read: https://www.i18next.com/overview/configuration-options .init({ debug: true, fallbackLng: 'en' }); export default function (app) { app.use(I18NextVue, { i18next }) return app }

// ... $(function () { // use plugins and options as needed, for options, detail see // https://www.i18next.com i18next // i18next-http-backend // loads translations from your server // https://github.com/i18next/i18next-http-backend .use(i18nextHttpBackend) // detect user language // learn more: https://github.com/i18next/i18next-browser-languageDetector .use(i18nextBrowserLanguageDetector) // init i18next // for all options read: https://www.i18next.com/overview/configuration-options .init({ debug: true, fallbackLng: 'en' }, (err, t) => { if (err) return console.error(err); // ... }); });

In addition, we need to install i18next-http-backend which allows us to fetch translations from a directory, and i18next-browser-languagedetector which allows us to detect the user's language:

import i18n from 'i18next'; import { initReactI18next } from 'react-i18next'; import LanguageDetector from 'i18next-browser-languagedetector'; import Backend from 'i18next-http-backend'; import { DateTime } from 'luxon'; i18n // i18next-http-backend // loads translations from your server // https://github.com/i18next/i18next-http-backend .use(Backend) // detect user language // learn more: https://github.com/i18next/i18next-browser-languageDetector .use(LanguageDetector) // pass the i18n instance to react-i18next. .use(initReactI18next) // init i18next // for all options read: https://www.i18next.com/overview/configuration-options .init({ debug: true, fallbackLng: 'en', interpolation: { escapeValue: false, // not needed for react as it escapes by default format: (value, format, lng) => { if (value instanceof Date) { return DateTime.fromJSDate(value).setLocale(lng).toLocaleString(DateTime[format]) } return value; } }, resources: { en: { translation: { description: { part1: 'Edit <1>src/App.js and save to reload.', part2: 'Learn React' }, counter: 'Changed language just once', counter_plural: 'Changed language already {{count}} times', footer: { date: 'Today is {{date, DATE_HUGE}}', date_morning: 'Good morning! Today is {{date, DATE_HUGE}} | Have a nice day!', date_afternoon: 'Good afternoon! It\'s {{date, DATE_HUGE}}', date_evening: 'Good evening! Today was the {{date, DATE_HUGE}}' } } }, de: { translation: { description: { part1: 'Ändere <1>src/App.js und speichere um neu zu laden.', part2: 'Lerne React' }, counter: 'Die Sprache wurde erst ein mal gewechselt', counter_plural: 'Die Sprache wurde {{count}} mal gewechselt', footer: { date: 'Heute ist {{date, DATE_HUGE}}', date_morning: 'Guten Morgen! Heute ist {{date, DATE_HUGE}} | Wünsche einen schönen Tag!', date_afternoon: 'Guten Tag! Es ist {{date, DATE_HUGE}}', date_evening: 'Guten Abend! Heute war {{date, DATE_HUGE}}' } } } } }); export default i18n;

To learn more about Moment.js, please visit their official website.

Ah, Moment.js, the guardian angel of date and time manipulation. Ever needed to format a date, calculate durations, or display something like "2 days ago"? Moment.js has got your back. It's a lifesaver for anything date and time-related, making it a must-have in your project, especially if you're into making your users feel like you really get them.

After hours of trying to figure out why Jekyll was still showing "Today" for a post I modified last week, I remembered that I am using the timeago filter from jekyll-timeago plugin. I was rendering the dates using {{ doc.last_modified_at | timeago }}. As you know, Jekyll is a static site generator, and it renders this as HTML at the time of build, and only then. This means any date rendered with timeago is hardcoded as is in the HTML and won't change until the next build. I switched all the dates to the "%-d %b %y" format for now. Might use moment.js in the future to get the timeago dates back.

moment: Handles date and time manipulations with ease. Learn more

For the longest time working with dates in JavaScript was a huge pain. That’s why libraries such as moment.js or date-fns are so popular. A lot of times I’d reach for these libraries when working with relative time formatting, but since late last year we’ve had pretty great browser support for the RelativeTimeFormat() method. In my mind, relative dates are just more visually appealing, especially for working with dates internationally. Dates like "5 days ago" or "in 2 months" are far more intuitive for users than 12/12/2023, or 03/11/2027. Folks in the US will see that as March 11, 2027, whereas the rest of the world will see that as November 03, 2027. What a nightmare.

İ am using moment js for a long time. You can check it also. https://momentjs.com/

We could control the DST flip by setting the test's input time to the appropriate time of year (summer/winter). However we couldn't control the timezone. We had to adjust the expected data in the test 🤢 using the same library which the production code used (momentjs).

8. Moment.js

This may sound a bit general but we can't forget about well-tought code. If we are using a lot of external dependencies, we can check if there aren't many lighter alternatives. Example? Some people are still using moment.js for date formatting. Why not use a lightweight 2kb alternative instead? Writing clean, organized and maintainable code won't give us a huge score boost but we are trying to save every byte of data, right? 😉