react-i18next VS locize-lastused

> 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

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 }

Thanks to the locize-lastused plugin, you'll be able to find and filter in locize which keys are used or not used anymore.

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(); }); }); });

import i18n from 'i18next'; import { initReactI18next } from 'react-i18next'; import LanguageDetector from 'i18next-browser-languagedetector'; import Backend from 'i18next-locize-backend'; import LastUsed from 'locize-lastused'; import { locizePlugin } from 'locize'; import { DateTime } from 'luxon'; const isProduction = process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production'; const locizeOptions = { projectId: process.env.REACT_APP_LOCIZE_PROJECTID, apiKey: process.env.REACT_APP_LOCIZE_APIKEY, // YOU should not expose your apps API key to production!!! referenceLng: process.env.REACT_APP_LOCIZE_REFLNG, version: process.env.REACT_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 i18n.use(LastUsed); } i18n // 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({ 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; } }, backend: locizeOptions, locizeLastUsed: locizeOptions, saveMissing: !isProduction // you should not use saveMissing in production }); export default i18n;