react-i18next VS i18next-browser-languageDetector

> It’s important to be aware of what you are getting if you go with React, and what you are getting is a far cry from what a framework would offer, with all the corresponding pros and cons.

Would you like to elaborate on that?

In my experience, with something as great, size/ecosystem-wise as React, there will almost always be at least one "mainstream" package for whatever you might want to do with it, that integrates pretty well. Where a lot of things might come out of the box with a framework, with a library I often find myself just needing to install the "right" package, and from there it's pretty much the same.

For example, using https://angular.io/guide/i18n-overview or installing and using https://react.i18next.com/

Or something like https://angular.io/guide/form-validation out of the box, vs installing and using https://formik.org/

Or perhaps https://angular.io/guide/router vs https://reactrouter.com/en/main

Even adding something that's not there out of the box is pretty much the same, like https://primeng.org/ or https://primereact.org/

React will typically have more fragmentation and therefore also choice, but I don't see those two experiences as that different. Updates and version management/supply chain will inevitably be more of a mess with the library, admittedly.

Now, projects like Next https://nextjs.org/ exist and add what some might regard as the missing pieces and work well if you want something opinionated and with lots of features out of the box, but a lot of those features (like SSR) are actually pretty advanced and not always even necessary.

In a recent project I've been using react-i18next so I'll use its syntax for the examples, but pretty much every library works similarly.

react-i18next

i18next - You can find documentation and resources for using i18next at react.i18next.com. i18next is a popular internationalization framework for JavaScript, including React. It provides a comprehensive solution for handling translations, formatting, and more.

So far, we’ve been using a utility createLocalizedString to create and use the LocalizedString type. This utility is only really practical in unit tests. For real applications, we’ll want to use a translation function from react-i18next or next-i18next to do the heavy lifting. Then we just wrap the translation functions that are provided in order to use our type:

Website: https://react.i18next.com/

If you are talking about handling translations for your application, take a look at https://react.i18next.com/

I will be supporting Korean as a part of the beta. I have to look deeper into https://react.i18next.com/ in order to understand what it provides. My goal is for engineers to be able to click a single button and have localizations always up to date in their codebase, not delaying shipping a new version or having to even think about it.

With the new react-i18next version, when loading multiple namespaces, t function will infer and accept the keys for the first namespace. So this pattern is now accepted:

react-i18next

Install i18next-browser-languagedetector to simplify language detection in the frontend

There are many other options which you can pass for language detection which you can find in the documentation

The following package will detect the language automatically for us. So don’t have to worry about determining the currently selected language

I wish language selection in OS and Browser were easier to access... but your browser does send a language header with your request, which generally matches your browser.

Location based is and can be a pain. I live in a border state and often get spanish versions of sites... I also follow a couple prominent youtubers who post english and foreign language content, so sometimes get results in those languages, that I don't read.

That said, using the default for the browser, and allowing override isn't a bad thing... I usually look for something that looks like a flag in the upper right, for language selection. And the few times I've written multi-language sites/apps that's the UX I prefer to use. I would default to browser/header, I would respond to the change event, and if the user selects a preference, set a cookie and use that first.

Again, I do wish it were easier to switch for the browser itself.

1. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Ac...

2. https://github.com/i18next/i18next-browser-languageDetector/...

3. https://github.com/i18next/i18next-browser-languageDetector

4. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/lang...

import i18n from "i18next"; import { initReactI18next } from "react-i18next"; import LanguageDetector from "i18next-browser-languagedetector"; i18n // 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 }, resources: { en: { translation: { title: "i18n React project", english: "English", spanish: "Spanish", }, }, es: { translation: { title: "Proyecto i18n en React", english: "Ingles", spanish: "Español", }, }, }, }); export default i18n;

import I18NextVue from 'i18next-vue' import i18next from 'i18next' import Backend from 'i18next-locize-backend' import LanguageDetector from 'i18next-browser-languagedetector' import LastUsed from 'locize-lastused' import { locizePlugin } from 'locize' const isProduction = process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' const locizeOptions = { projectId: process.env.VUE_APP_LOCIZE_PROJECTID, apiKey: process.env.VUE_APP_LOCIZE_APIKEY, // YOU should not expose your apps API key to production!!! version: process.env.VUE_APP_LOCIZE_VERSION } if (!isProduction) { // locize-lastused // sets a timestamp of last access on every translation segment on locize // -> safely remove the ones not being touched for weeks/months // https://github.com/locize/locize-lastused i18next.use(LastUsed); } export const i18nextPromise = i18next // locize-editor // InContext Editor of locize .use(locizePlugin) // i18next-locize-backend // loads translations from your project, saves new keys to it (saveMissing: true) // https://github.com/locize/i18next-locize-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: !isProduction, fallbackLng: 'en', saveMissing: !isProduction, backend: locizeOptions, locizeLastUsed: locizeOptions }) export default function (app) { app.use(I18NextVue, { i18next }) return app }

import { hydrate } from 'react-dom' import { RemixBrowser } from 'remix' import i18next from 'i18next' import LanguageDetector from 'i18next-browser-languagedetector' import { initReactI18next } from 'react-i18next' import Backend from 'i18next-locize-backend' import LastUsed from 'locize-lastused' import { locizePlugin } from 'locize' import i18nextOptions from './i18nextOptions' const isProduction = process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' const locizeOptions = { projectId: 'f6d74b76-9677-4a0d-b400-86e1507397ab', apiKey: !isProduction ? '1c2bbc21-027d-4f41-995a-e8beb451cdef' : undefined, // YOU should not expose your apps API key to production!!! version: isProduction ? 'production' : 'latest' } if (!isProduction) { // locize-lastused // sets a timestamp of last access on every translation segment on locize // -> safely remove the ones not being touched for weeks/months // https://github.com/locize/locize-lastused i18next.use(LastUsed) } // initialize i18next using initReactI18next and configuring it if (!i18next.isInitialized) { // prevent i18next to be initialized multiple times i18next // locize-editor // InContext Editor of locize .use(locizePlugin) // i18next-locize-backend // loads translations from your project, saves new keys to it (saveMissing: true) // https://github.com/locize/i18next-locize-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({ ...i18nextOptions, detection: { caches: ['cookie'], lookupCookie: 'i18next' }, backend: locizeOptions, locizeLastUsed: locizeOptions, saveMissing: !isProduction // you should not use saveMissing in production }) .then(() => { // then hydrate your app wrapped in the RemixI18NextProvider return hydrate( , document ) }) }

const getGreetingTime = () => { const split_afternoon = 12; // 24hr time to split the afternoon const split_evening = 17; // 24hr time to split the evening const currentHour = moment().hour(); if (currentHour >= split_afternoon && currentHour <= split_evening) { return 'afternoon'; } else if (currentHour >= split_evening) { return 'evening'; } return 'morning'; } const rerender = () => { // start localizing, details: // https://github.com/i18next/jquery-i18next#usage-of-selector-function $('body').localize(); $('#footerMessage').localize({ context: getGreetingTime() }); $('title').text($.t('head.title')) $('meta[name=description]').attr('content', $.t('head.description')) } const locizeOptions = { projectId: '8d751621-323e-4bda-94c8-7d2368102e62', apiKey: '302aca54-2ea8-4b9f-b5f0-df1369c59427' // YOU should not expose your apps API key to production!!! }; i18next.on('editorSaved', rerender); // used for the inContext editor $(function () { const locizeBackend = new i18nextLocizeBackend(locizeOptions, (err, opts, lngs) => { if (err) return console.error(err); // use plugins and options as needed, for options, detail see // https://www.i18next.com i18next // locize-editor // InContext Editor of locize .use(locize.locizePlugin) // locize-lastused (do not use this in production) // sets a timestamp of last access on every translation segment on locize // -> safely remove the ones not being touched for weeks/months // https://github.com/locize/locize-lastused .use(locizeLastUsed) // i18next-locize-backend // loads translations from your project, saves new keys to it (saveMissing: true) // https://github.com/locize/i18next-locize-backend .use(locizeBackend) // 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({ ...opts, debug: true, fallbackLng: 'en', backend: locizeOptions, locizeLastUsed: locizeOptions, saveMissing: true // interpolation: { // // legacy usage // format: (value, format, lng) => { // if (value instanceof Date) { // return moment(value).locale(lng).format(format); // } // return value; // } // } }, (err, t) => { if (err) return console.error(err); // new usage i18next.services.formatter.add('LLLL', (value, lng, options) => { return moment(value).locale(lng).format('LLLL'); }); // for options see // https://github.com/i18next/jquery-i18next#initialize-the-plugin jqueryI18next.init(i18next, $, { useOptionsAttr: true }); // fill language switcher Object.keys(lngs).map((lng) => { const opt = new Option(lngs[lng].nativeName, lng); if (lng === i18next.resolvedLanguage) { opt.setAttribute("selected", "selected"); } $('#languageSwitcher').append(opt); }); let languageChangedCounter = 0; $('#languageSwitcher').change((a, b, c) => { const chosenLng = $(this).find("option:selected").attr('value'); i18next.changeLanguage(chosenLng, () => { rerender(); // language changed message languageChangedCounter++; $('#languageChangedNotification').localize({ count: languageChangedCounter }) if (languageChangedCounter === 1) { $('#languageChangedNotification').show(); } }); }); rerender(); $('#loader').hide(); $('#content').show(); }); }); });

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:

my go-to localization package is this: https://react.i18next.com/ used with https://github.com/i18next/i18next-browser-languageDetector