@vocab/phrase

Vocab

Vocab is a strongly typed internationalisation framework for React.

Getting started

Step 1: Install Dependencies

Vocab is a monorepo with different packages you can install depending on your usage, the below list will get you started using the cli, React and webpack integrations.

$ npm i --save @vocab/cli @vocab/react @vocab/webpack

Step 2: Setup Webpack plugin

Before starting to write code you'll need to setup webpack to understand how to use translation.json files.

This is done using the VocabWebpackPlugin.

webpack.config.js

const VocabWebpackPlugin = require('@vocab/webpack').default;

module.exports = {
  ...,
  plugins: [new VocabWebpackPlugin({})]
}

Step 3: Configure Vocab

You can configure Vocab directly when calling the API or via a vocab.config.js file.

In this example we've configured two languages, English and French, where our initial translation.json files will use English.

vocab.config.js

module.exports = {
  devLanguage: 'en',
  languages: [{ name: 'en' }, { name: 'fr' }]
};

Step 3: Set the language using the React Provider

Vocab doesn't tell you how to select or change your language. You just need to tell Vocab what language to use.

Note: Using methods discussed later we'll make sure the first language is loaded on page load. However, after this changing languages may then lead to a period of no translations as Vocab downloads the new language's translations.

src/App.tsx

import { VocabProvider } from '@vocab/react';

function App({ children }) {
  return (
    <VocabProvider language={language}>
      {children}
    </VocabProvider>
  );
}

Step 4: Create initial values and use them

A translation file is a JSON file consisting of a flat structure of keys, each with a message and an optional description.

Note: Currently, to create a new translation it must be placed inside a __translations__ folder, this folder name can be configured with translationsDirname configuration.

./__translations__/translations.json

{
  "my key": {
    "message": "Hello from Vocab",
    "description": "An optional description to help when translating"
  }
}

Then run vocab compile. Or vocab compile --watch. This will create new translation.ts files for each translation.json file.

You can then import these translations into your React components. Translations can be used by calling the t function returned by useTranslation.

./MyComponent.tsx

import { useTranslation } from '@vocab/react';
import translations from './translations';

function MyComponent({ children }) {
  const { t } = useTranslation(translations);
  return <div>{t('my key')}</div>;
}

Step 5: Create translations

So far your app will run, but you're missing any translations other than the initial language. The below file can be created manually; however, you can also integrate with a remote translation platform to push and pull translations automatically.

./__translations__/translations.fr-FR.json

{
  "my key": {
    "message": "Bonjour de Vocab",
    "decription": "An optional description to help when translating"
  }
}

Step 6: Optimize for fast page loading

Using the above method without optimizing what chunks webpack uses you may find the page needing to do an extra round trip to load languages on a page.

This is where getChunkName can be used to retrieve the Webpack chunk used for a specific language.

For example here is a Server Render function that would add the current language chunk to Loadable component's ChunkExtractor.

src/render.tsx

import { getChunkName } from '@vocab/webpack/chunk-name';

// ...

const chunkName = getChunkName(language);

const extractor = new ChunkExtractor();

extractor.addChunk(chunkName);

Configuration

Configuration can either be passed into the Node API directly or be gathered from the nearest vocab.config.js file.

vocab.config.js

module.exports = {
  devLanguage: 'en',
  languages: [
    { name: 'en' },
    { name: 'en-AU', extends: 'en' },
    { name: 'en-US', extends: 'en' },
    { name: 'fr-FR' }
  ]
};

Generate Types

Vocab generates custom translation.ts files that give your React components strongly typed translations to work with.

To generate these types run:

$ vocab compile

Or to rerun the compiler when files change use:

$ vocab compile --watch

External translation tooling

Vocab can be used to syncronize your translations with translations from a remote translation platform.

Platform	Environment Variables
Phrase	PHRASE_PROJECT_ID, PHRASE_API_TOKEN

$ vocab push --branch my-branch
$ vocab pull --branch my-branch

License

MIT.