retranslate

retranslate

Real simple translations for react. Lightweight (< 10 KB gzipped) and with no dependencies.

Usage

First, install retranslate using

• npm: npm install --save retranslate
• or yarn: yarn add retranslate

import { Message, Provider as TranslationProvider, withTranslations } from 'retranslate';

import SomeComponent from './someComponent';
import { getLanguage } from './config'; // some functionality to select a language, in this example, hopefully returning en or et.
import { version } from '../../package.json';

// You can import these from a json file that tools like crowdin can use, like
// import enTranslations from './translations.en.json';
// import etTranslations from './translations.et.json';
const translations = {
  en: {
    'main.heading': 'retranslate #{{ versionNumber }}',
    'main.subtitle': 'Real simple translations for react.',
    'current.language': 'Your current language is {{ currentLanguage }}',
    'bold.thing': 'This <b>text</b> is bold',
  },
  et: {
    'main.heading': 'retranslate #{{ versionNumber }}',
    'main.subtitle': 'Väga lihtsad tõlked reactile.',
    'current.language': 'Teie hetke keel on {{ language }}',
    'bold.thing': 'See <b>tekst</b> on tumedam',
  },
};

// You can use the withTranslations higher-order component to get a hold of the current language and the translate function.
const LanguageShower = withTranslations(({ translations: { translate, language } }) => (
  <p>{translate('current.language', { currentLanguage: language })}</p>
));

const App = () => (
  <TranslationProvider messages={translations} language={getLanguage()} fallbackLanguage="en">
    <h1><Message params={{ versionNumber: version }}>main.heading</Message></h1>
    <SomeComponent /> // this can also use the Message component, since there is a Provider up the tree.
    <Message className="lead">main.subtitle</Message> // you can apply classes to the translated string
    <Message dangerouslyTranslateInnerHTML="bold.thing" /> // this does not escape HTML. Dangerous to use, be careful.
    <LanguageShower />
  </TranslationProvider>
);

Provider

retranslate is configured using the Provider. You pass Provider messages, a language and a fallbackLanguage (just in case). Wrap your application with Provider to make retranslate work. The Provider takes an optional argument wrapperElement, which can be used to configure which element is used to render the provider. This can either be a string to use a DOM element (e.g. <Provider wrapperElement="span">) or some react element (e.g. <Provider wrapperElement={React.Fragment}>).

Message

retranslate uses Message to actually translate your messages. It uses the children you give it as the key to use to get translations.

withTranslations

withTranslations is a higher order component that you can use to access translation functionality and language manually.

Potential questions

• Async loading

  I don't want to build this into retranslate. I would keep handling this on the application side.

• Logic in templates, such as {{ thing + 1 }}

  I would not like to do this, as it makes the whole application harder to test and maintain.

• Plurals

  This is something that will be worked on.

• Compiled templates for even better performance

  Also something that will probably be worked on.

Contributing

Use the test and build script to test the library. Make a pull request, and it will be automatically checked by CircleCI, Coveralls, and @Tankenstein. When you make a production code change, make sure to increment the version in package.json according to semver. As your branch is merged, a release will automatically be made.

retranslate is licensed under MIT.