jsperanto

Simple translation for your javascripts, yummy with your favorite templates engine like EJS.

• Pluralization, interpolation & "nested lookup" support for your translations
• Uses XHR to get a JSON dictionary (or load it your own way & format)
• JSLint-ed, QUnit-ed
• similar to Rails's i18n but sans backend needed
• No global pollution (hides under jQuery.jsperanto)
• Works with : IE6+, Firefox 3+, Safari 3+, Chrome, Opera 9+
• AMD, CommonJS modules supported

Depends on jQuery 1.4+ (uses $.ajax, $.each, $.extend)

Usage example

$.jsperanto.init(function(t){
    t('project.name'); //-> "jsperanto"
    $.t('project.store'); //-> "JSON"
    
    $.t('can_speak',{count:1}); //-> "I can only speak one language"
    $.t('can_speak',{count:3}); //-> "I can speak 3 languages"
    $.t('can_speak_plural',{count:'any'}); //-> "I can speak any languages"
  
    $.t('project.size.source',{value:4,unit:"kb"}); //-> "jsperanto is 4 kb"
    $.t('project.size.min',{value:1727,unit:"bytes"}) //-> "jsperanto is 1727 bytes when minified"
    $.t('project.size.gzip',{value:833,unit:"bytes"}) //-> "jsperanto is 833 bytes when minified and gzipped"
});

//given this dictionary
{
  "project" : {
     "name" : "jsperanto",
     "store" : "JSON",
     "size" : {
        "source" : "$t(project.name) is __value__ __unit__",
        "min" : "$t(project.size.source) when minified",
        "gzip" : "$t(project.size.min) and gzipped"
     }
  },
  "can_speak" : "I can only speak one language",
  "can_speak_plural" : "I can speak __count__ languages"
}

API

$.jsperanto.init(function(t),options)

initialize jsperanto by loading the dictionary, calling back when ready

function(t) : is called once jsperanto is ready, passing the translate method ($.jsperanto.translate)

options extends these defaults

o.interpolationPrefix = '__'; 
o.interpolationSuffix = '__';
o.pluralSuffix = "_plural";
o.getSuffixMethod = function(count){ return ( count > 1 || typeof(count) == "string" )  ? o.pluralSuffix : ""; };
o.maxRecursion = 50; //used while applying reuse of strings to avoid infinite loop
o.reusePrefix = "$t("; //nested lookup prefix
o.reuseSuffix = ")"; //nested lookup suffix
o.fallbackLang = 'en-US'; // see Language fallback section
o.dicoPath = 'locales'; // see Dictionary section
o.keyseparator = "."; // keys passed to $.jsperanto.translate use this separator
o.setDollarT = true; // $.t aliases $.jsperanto.translate, nice shortcut
o.dictionary = false; // to supply the dictionary instead of loading it using $.ajax. A (big) javascript object containing your namespaced translations
o.lang = false; //specify a language to use i.e en-US

Use init to switch language too :

$.jsperanto.init(someMethod,{lang:"fr"})

$.jsperanto.translate(key,options)

looks up the key in the dictionary applying plural, interpolation & nested lookup.

key to lookup in the dictionary, for example "register.error.email"

options each prop name are are used for interpolation

options.count special prop that indicates to retrieve the plural version (key_plural) if its greater than 1. Also used for interpolation

options.defaultValue specify default value if the key can't be resolved (the key itself will be sent back if no defaultValue is provided)

aliases : $.jsperanto.t , $.t if init option setDollarT is left to true.

Dictionary loading

Using defaults, jsperanto uses a basic browser language detection

(navigator.language) ? navigator.language : navigator.userLanguage

to determine what dictionary file to load. You can also instruct jsperanto to load a specific language (via init option lang).

Once the language is determined, jsperanto will use $.ajax to load the dictionary using locales/somelang.json as url. For example locales/fr-CA.json is used for a french canadian browser. If the json file can't be retrieved, it will try to get the fallback language, which is 'en-US' by default. (you can change this using init option fallbacklang). If no dictionary file can be retrieved at all, jsperanto translate method will simply return the provided key.

You can bypass this loading mechanism completely by providing a dictionary object to init (options.dictionary)

Switching language

Simply use init again and specify a language (or dictionary) to use.

$.jsperanto.init(someMethod,{lang:"fr"})

Custom suffixes

At init time you can specify a method which will calculate the suffix to use if count is present. the argument passed to this method is the count and can be a string or number. Anything other than a string returned will be disregarded.

$.jsperanto.init(someMethod, {
  lang:"en-us",
  getSuffixMethod : function(count){
     if ( count == 0 ) {
        return "_zero";
     }
     if ( count != 1 ) {
        return "_plural";
     }
  }
)

Licence

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2010 Jean-Philippe Joyal, http://leastusedfeature.wordpress.com

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.

Inspiration & similar projects

Rails i18n

Babilu

l10n.js

javascript_i18n

Thanks

Many thanks to Radialpoint for letting me open source this work