@prodkt/localize

v2.1.5

Published

10 months ago

A micro library for localizing custom elements using Lit's Reactive Controller model.

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bryanfunk

tovuti web components custom elements localization internationalization i18n l10n

MoyoUI: Localize

This zero-dependency micro library does not aim to replicate a full-blown localization tool. For that, you should use something like i18next. What this library does do is provide a lightweight, framework-agnostic mechanism for sharing and applying translations across one or more custom elements in a component library.

Included are methods for translating terms, dates, currencies, and numbers and a Reactive Controller that can be used as a mixin in Lit and other supportive component authoring libraries.

Overview

Here's an example of how this library can be used to create a localized custom element with Lit.

import { LocalizeController, registerTranslation } from '@tovutifunk/localize';

// Translations can also be loaded outside of the component and/or on the fly using dynamic imports
import en from '../translations/en';
import es from '../translations/es';

registerTranslation(en, es);

@customElement('my-element')
export class MyElement extends LitElement {
  private localize = new LocalizeController(this);

  @property() lang: string;

  render() {
    return html`
      <h1>${this.localize.term('hello_world')}</h1>
    `;
  }
}

To set the page locale, apply the desired lang attribute to the <html> element.

<html lang="es">
  ...
</html>

Changes to <html lang> will trigger an update to all localized components automatically.

Why this instead of an i18n library?

It's not uncommon for a custom element to require localization, but implementing it at the component level is challenging. For example, how should we provide a translation for this close button that exists in a custom element's shadow root?

<button type="button" aria-label="Close">
  <svg>...</svg>
</button>

Typically, custom element authors dance around the problem by exposing attributes or properties for such purposes.

<my-element close-label="${t('close')}">
  ...
</my-element>

But this approach offloads the problem to the user so they have to provide every term, every time. It also doesn't scale with more complex components that have more than a handful of terms to be translated.

This is the use case this library is solving for. It is not intended to solve localization at the framework level. There are much better tools for that.

How it works

To achieve this goal, we lean on HTML’s lang attribute to determine what language should be used. The default locale is specified by <html lang="...">, but any localized element can be scoped to a locale by setting its lang attribute. This means you can have more than one language per page, if desired.

<html lang="en">
<body>
  <my-element>This element will be English</my-element>
  <my-element lang="es">This element will be Spanish</my-element>
  <my-element lang="fr">This element will be French</my-element>
</body>
</html>

This library provides a set of tools to localize dates, currencies, numbers, and terms in your custom element library with a minimal footprint. Reactivity is achieved with a MutationObserver that listens for lang changes on <html>.

By design, lang attributes on ancestor elements are ignored. This is for performance reasons, as there isn't an efficient way to detect the "current language" of an arbitrary element. I consider this a gap in the platform and I've proposed properties to make this lookup less expensive.

Usage

First, install the library.

npm install @prodkt/localize

Next, follow these steps to localize your components.

Create a translation
Register the translation
Localize your components

Creating a Translation

All translations must extend the Translation type and implement the required meta properties (denoted by a $ prefix). Additional terms can be implemented as show below.

// en.ts
import type { Translation } from '@prodkt/localize';

const translation: Translation = {
  $code: 'en',
  $name: 'English',
  $dir: 'ltr',

  // Simple terms
  upload: 'Upload',

  // Terms with placeholders
  greet_user: (name: string) => `Hello, ${name}!`,

  // Plurals
  num_files_selected: (count: number) => {
    if (count === 0) return 'No files selected';
    if (count === 1) return '1 file selected';
    return `${count} files selected`;
  }
};

export default translation;

Registering Translations

Once you've created a translation, you need to register it before use. To register a translation, call the registerTranslation() method. This example imports and register two translations up front.

import { registerTranslation } from '@tovutifunk/localize';
import en from './en';
import es from './es';

registerTranslation(en, es);

The first translation that's registered will be used as the fallback. That is, if a term is missing from the target language, the fallback language will be used instead.

Translations registered with country such as en-GB are supported. However, your fallback translation must be registered with only a language code (e.g. en) to ensure users of unsupported regions will still receive a comprehensible translation.

For example, if you're fallback language is en-US, you should register it as en so users with unsupported en-* country codes will receive it as a fallback. Then you can register country codes such as en-GB and en-AU to improve the experience for additional regions.

It's important to note that translations do not have to be registered up front. You can register them on demand as the language changes in your app. Upon registration, localized components will update automatically.

Here's a sample function that dynamically loads a translation.

import { registerTranslation } from '@tovutifunk/localize';

async function changeLanguage(lang) {
  const availableTranslations = ['en', 'es', 'fr', 'de'];

  if (availableTranslations.includes(lang)) {
    const translation = await import(`/path/to/translations/${lang}.js`);
    registerTranslation(translation);
  }
}

Localizing Components

You can use the LocalizeController with any library that supports Lit's Reactive Controller pattern. In Lit, a localized custom element will look something like this.

import { LitElement } from 'lit';
import { customElement } from 'lit/decorators.js';
import { LocalizeController } from '@prodkt/localize/dist/lit.js';

@customElement('my-element')
export class MyElement extends LitElement {
  private localize = new LocalizeController(this);

  @property() lang: string;

  render() {
    return html`
      <!-- Term -->
      ${this.localize.term('hello')}

      <!-- Date -->
      ${this.localize.date('2021-09-15 14:00:00 ET'), { month: 'long', day: 'numeric', year: 'numeric' }}

      <!-- Number/currency -->
      ${this.localize.number(1000, { style: 'currency', currency: 'USD'})}
    `;
  }
}

Advantages

Extremely lightweight
- Zero dependencies
  - Version 2.1 measures 726 bytes (yes, bytes) after minify + gzip
Uses existing platform features
Supports simple terms, plurals, and complex translations
- Fun fact: some languages have six plural forms and this will support that
Supports dates, numbers, and currencies
Good DX for custom element authors and consumers
- Intuitive API for custom element authors
- Consumers only need to load the translations they want and set the lang attribute
Translations can be loaded up front or on demand
Translations can be created by consumers without having to wait for them to get accepted upstream

Disadvantages

Complex translations require some code, such as conditionals
- This is arguably no more difficult than, for example, adding them to a YAML or XLIFF file

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