innoboxrr-i18n

i18n

A tiny translation runtime for JavaScript. No dependencies, no build step.

Load translations, pick a locale, resolve keys. That is the whole surface.

import t, { addTranslations, setLocale } from 'innoboxrr-i18n';

addTranslations({
  en: { 'Hello :name': 'Hello :name' },
  es: { 'Hello :name': 'Hola :name' },
});

setLocale('es-MX');
t('Hello :name', { name: 'Homero' });   // → Hola Homero

API

source is either an object keyed by locale, or Vite's eager glob over JSON files:

addTranslations(import.meta.glob('/resources/locales/*.json', { eager: true }));

Several sources

A module can ship its own translations and the application can load its own on top. Load the module's first, so the application has the last word:

import { translations as catalog } from 'acme-catalog';

addTranslations(catalog);
addTranslations(import.meta.glob('/resources/locales/*.json', { eager: true }));
setLocale(document.documentElement.lang);

An empty translation ("Create": "", which is what locale-gen writes for a new key) means not translated yet: it never overrides a translation loaded before it, and with nothing else t() shows the key instead of a blank.

Locale matching

• The locale is the file name: /resources/locales/es.json is es. The rest of the path is ignored.
• es-MX uses the es translations and overrides them with es-MX where both exist.
• es falls back to a regional variant (es-MX) when there is no plain es.
• Case and _ do not matter: es_MX.json matches setLocale('es-mx').

Install

npm install innoboxrr-i18n

Pairs naturally with innoboxrr-locale-generator, which collects the t('…') keys of a project into these JSON files.

Part of Innobox R&R — 52 open-source packages extracted from production work. innobox.systems