/i18n-js

It's a small library to provide the I18n translations on the Javascript. It comes with Rails support.

Primary LanguageJavaScript

I18n.js

It's a small library to provide the Rails I18n translations on the Javascript.

Features:

  • Pluralization
  • Date/Time localization
  • Number localization
  • Locale fallback
  • Asset pipeline support
  • Lots more! :)

Usage

Installation

Rails app

Add the gem to your Gemfile.

source :rubygems
gem "rails", "3.2.3"
gem "i18n-js"

If you're using the asset pipeline, then you must add the following line to your app/assets/javascripts/application.js.

//= require i18n/translations

If you're not using the asset pipeline, download the JavaScript file at https://github.com/fnando/i18n-js/tree/master/lib/i18n.js and load it on your page. Also load the translations.js file.

<%= javascript_include_tag "i18n", "translations" %>

This translations.js file can be automatically generated by the I18n::JS::Middleware. Just add it to your config/application.rb file.

config.middleware.use I18n::JS::Middleware

If you can't generate this file in production (Heroku anyone?), you can "precompile" it by running the following command. Move the middleware line to your config/environments/development.rb file and run the following command before deploying.

$ rake i18n:js:export

This will export all translation files, including the custom scopes you may have defined on config/i18n-js.yml.

Vanilla JavaScript

Just add the i18n.js file to your page. You'll have to build the translations object by hand or using your favorite programming language. More info below.

Setting up

You don't need to set up a thing. The default settings will work just okay. But if you want to split translations into several files or specify specific contexts, you can follow the rest of this setting up section.

Set your locale is easy as

I18n.defaultLocale = "pt-BR";
I18n.locale = "pt-BR";
I18n.currentLocale();
// pt-BR

NOTE: You can now apply your configuration before I18n is loaded like this:

I18n = {} // You must define this object in top namespace, which should be `window`
I18n.defaultLocale = "pt-BR";
I18n.locale = "pt-BR";

// Load I18n from `i18n.js`, `application.js` or whatever

I18n.currentLocale();
// pt-BR

In practice, you'll have something like the following in your application.html.erb:

<script type="text/javascript">
  I18n.defaultLocale = "<%= I18n.default_locale %>";
  I18n.locale = "<%= I18n.locale %>";
</script>

You can use translate your messages:

I18n.t("some.scoped.translation");
// or translate with explicite setting of locale
I18n.t("some.scoped.translation", {locale: "fr"});

You can also interpolate values:

I18n.t("hello", {name: "John Doe"});

You can set default values for missing scopes:

// simple translation
I18n.t("some.missing.scope", {defaultValue: "A default message"});

// with interpolation
I18n.t("noun", {defaultValue: "I'm a {{noun}}", noun: "Mac"});

Translation fallback can be enabled by enabling the I18n.fallbacks option:

<script type="text/javascript">
  I18n.fallbacks = true;
</script>

By default missing translations will first be looked for in less specific versions of the requested locale and if that fails by taking them from your I18n.defaultLocale.

// if I18n.defaultLocale = "en" and translation doesn't exist
// for I18n.locale = "de-DE" this key will be taken from "de" locale scope
// or, if that also doesn't exist, from "en" locale scope
I18n.t("some.missing.scope");

Custom fallback rules can also be specified for a particular language. There are three different ways of doing it so:

I18n.locales.no = ["nb", "en"];
I18n.locales.no = "nb";
I18n.locales.no = function(locale){ return ["nb"]; };

Pluralization is possible as well and by default provides english rules:

I18n.t("inbox.counting", {count: 10}); // You have 10 messages

The sample above expects the following translation:

en:
  inbox:
    counting:
      one: You have 1 new message
      other: You have {{count}} new messages
      zero: You have no messages

NOTE: Rais I18n recognizes the zero option.

If you need special rules just define them for your language, for example Russian, just add a new pluralizer:

I18n.pluralization["ru"] = function (count) {
  return count % 10 == 1 && count % 100 != 11 ? "one" : [2, 3, 4].indexOf(count % 10) >= 0 && [12, 13, 14].indexOf(count % 100) < 0 ? "few" : count % 10 == 0 || [5, 6, 7, 8, 9].indexOf(count % 10) >= 0 || [11, 12, 13, 14].indexOf(count % 100) >= 0 ? "many" : "other";
};

You can find all rules on http://unicode.org/repos/cldr-tmp/trunk/diff/supplemental/language_plural_rules.html.

If you're using the same scope over and over again, you may use the scope option.

var options = {scope: "activerecord.attributes.user"};

I18n.t("name", options);
I18n.t("email", options);
I18n.t("username", options);

You can also provide an array as scope.

// use the greetings.hello scope
I18n.t(["greetings", "hello"]);

Number formatting

Similar to Rails helpers, you have localized number and currency formatting.

I18n.l("currency", 1990.99);
// $1,990.99

I18n.l("number", 1990.99);
// 1,990.99

I18n.l("percentage", 123.45);
// 123.450%

To have more control over number formatting, you can use the I18n.toNumber, I18n.toPercentage, I18n.toCurrency and I18n.toHumanSize functions.

I18n.toNumber(1000);     // 1,000.000
I18n.toCurrency(1000);   // $1,000.00
I18n.toPercentage(100);  // 100.000%

The toNumber and toPercentage functions accept the following options:

  • precision: defaults to 3
  • separator: defaults to .
  • delimiter: defaults to ,
  • strip_insignificant_zeros: defaults to false

See some number formatting examples:

I18n.toNumber(1000, {precision: 0});                   // 1,000
I18n.toNumber(1000, {delimiter: ".", separator: ","}); // 1.000,000
I18n.toNumber(1000, {delimiter: ".", precision: 0});   // 1.000

The toCurrency function accepts the following options:

  • precision: sets the level of precision
  • separator: sets the separator between the units
  • delimiter: sets the thousands delimiter
  • format: sets the format of the output string
  • unit: sets the denomination of the currency
  • strip_insignificant_zeros: defaults to false

You can provide only the options you want to override:

I18n.toCurrency(1000, {precision: 0}); // $1,000

The toHumanSize function accepts the following options:

  • precision: defaults to 1
  • separator: defaults to .
  • delimiter: defaults to ""
  • strip_insignificant_zeros: defaults to false
  • format: defaults to %n%u
I18n.toHumanSize(1234); // 1KB
I18n.toHumanSize(1234 * 1024); // 1MB

Date formatting

// accepted formats
I18n.l("date.formats.short", "2009-09-18");           // yyyy-mm-dd
I18n.l("time.formats.short", "2009-09-18 23:12:43");  // yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss
I18n.l("time.formats.short", "2009-11-09T18:10:34");  // JSON format with local Timezone (part of ISO-8601)
I18n.l("time.formats.short", "2009-11-09T18:10:34Z"); // JSON format in UTC (part of ISO-8601)
I18n.l("date.formats.short", 1251862029000);          // Epoch time
I18n.l("date.formats.short", "09/18/2009");           // mm/dd/yyyy
I18n.l("date.formats.short", (new Date()));           // Date object

If you prefer, you can use the I18n.strftime function to format dates.

var date = new Date();
I18n.strftime(date, "%d/%m/%Y");

The accepted formats are:

%a  - The abbreviated weekday name (Sun)
%A  - The full weekday name (Sunday)
%b  - The abbreviated month name (Jan)
%B  - The full month name (January)
%c  - The preferred local date and time representation
%d  - Day of the month (01..31)
%-d - Day of the month (1..31)
%H  - Hour of the day, 24-hour clock (00..23)
%-H - Hour of the day, 24-hour clock (0..23)
%I  - Hour of the day, 12-hour clock (01..12)
%-I - Hour of the day, 12-hour clock (1..12)
%m  - Month of the year (01..12)
%-m - Month of the year (1..12)
%M  - Minute of the hour (00..59)
%-M - Minute of the hour (0..59)
%p  - Meridian indicator (AM  or  PM)
%S  - Second of the minute (00..60)
%-S - Second of the minute (0..60)
%w  - Day of the week (Sunday is 0, 0..6)
%y  - Year without a century (00..99)
%-y - Year without a century (0..99)
%Y  - Year with century
%z  - Timezone offset (+0545)

Check out spec/*.spec.js files for more examples!

Using I18n.js with other languages (Python, PHP, ...)

The JavaScript library is language agnostic; so you can use it with PHP, Python, [you favorite language here]. The only requirement is that you need to set the translations attribute like following:

I18n.translations = {};

I18n.translations["en"] = {
  message: "Some special message for you"
}

I18n.translations["pt-BR"] = {
  message: "Uma mensagem especial para você"
}

Maintainer

Contributing

Once you've made your great commits:

  1. Fork I18n.js
  2. Create a topic branch - git checkout -b my_branch
  3. Push to your branch - git push origin my_branch
  4. Create an Issue with a link to your branch
  5. That's it!

Please respect the indentation rules and code style. And use 2 spaces, not tabs. And don't touch the versioning thing.

Running tests

You can run I18n tests using Node.js or your browser.

To use Node.js, install the jasmine-node library:

$ npm install jasmine-node

Then execute the following command from the lib's root directory:

$ npm test

To run using your browser, just open the spec/js/specs.html file.

You can run both Ruby and JavaScript specs with rake spec.

License

(The MIT License)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.