Vue3 + i18n (bonus i18n ally)

#webdev #vue #i18n #vite

How to configure i18n and vue3 so that at the end of the project the translation files are not 10000 lines long and incomprehensible.

The solution? i18n namespaced files and the i18n ally extension!

1. Create a brand new project

pnpm create vue@latest

✔ Project name: … vue3-i18n
✔ Add TypeScript? … Yes
✔ Add JSX Support? … No
✔ Add Vue Router for Single Page Application development? … No
✔ Add Pinia for state management? … No
✔ Add Vitest for Unit Testing? … No
✔ Add an End-to-End Testing Solution? › No
✔ Add ESLint for code quality? … No
✔ Add Prettier for code formatting? … No

pnpm install && pnpm run dev

You should now bet able to see a basic Vue3 project on localhost:5173

2. i18n

Install i18n for Vue3

pnpm install vue-i18n@9

Create some translation files

Here is my architecture. Follow it for this tutorial, you can change it later with some job.

locales/en/auth.json

{
  "SignIn": "Sign In",
  "SignUp": "Sign Up"
}

locales/en/commons.json

{
  "height": "Height",
  "weight": "Weight"
}

For the FR part, I let you translate by yourself!

Init i18n configuration file

Inside locales folder create an index.ts file.

import { createI18n, type I18n, type Locale } from "vue-i18n";
import authEN from "./en/auth.json";
import authFR from "./fr/auth.json";
import commonsEN from "./en/commons.json";
import commonsFR from "./fr/commons.json";

let i18n: I18n;

const init = () => {
  i18n = createI18n({
    locale: "en",
    messages: {
      en: {
        auth: authEN,
        commons: commonsEN,
      },
      fr: {
        auth: authFR,
        commons: commonsFR,
      },
    },
  });
};

const setLocale = (locale: Locale): void => {
  i18n.global.locale = locale;
};

init();

export { i18n, setLocale };

Add i18n to the Vue3 app

inside the main.ts import i18n as

import { i18n } from "./locales";

And the use this i18n

createApp(App).use(i18n).mount("#app");

3. Test our integration

Replace the content of App.vue with

<script setup lang="ts">
  import {setLocale} from "./locales"
  const changeLocale = () => {
    setLocale('fr')
  }
</script>

<template>
  <main>
    {{$t('auth.SignIn')}}
    {{$t('commons.height')}}
    <button @click=changeLocale>Change Locale</button>
  </main>
</template>

You should see:

And if you click on the button... TADA! Strings are no FR ones.

4. Bonus: i18n ally

Dealing with a large set of locales and translation can be such a pain in the a$$.

This is where the i18n ally extension come to the rescue.

i18n ally installation

You can add it to VSCode from the embeded marketplace or from this link

i18n ally configuration

Open User Settings Preferences (JSON) from the quick access shortcut.

shift + cmd + p

And the add in the end of the JSON file these lines

  "i18n-ally.dirStructure": "auto",
  "i18n-ally.enabledFrameworks": ["vue"],
  "i18n-ally.enabledParsers": ["json", "yaml"],
  "i18n-ally.extract.autoDetect": true,
  "i18n-ally.namespace": true,
  "i18n-ally.pathMatcher": "{locale}/{namespaces}.json",