jQuery-i18n is a jQuery plugin for doing client-side translations in javascript. It is based heavily on javascript i18n that almost doesn't suck by Marko Samastur, and is licensed under the MIT license.

You'll need to download the jQuery library, and include it before jquery.i18n.js in your HTML source. See the examples folder for examples.

This library is also available as a bower component under the name jquery-i18n.

Before you can do any translation you have to initialise the plugin with a 'dictionary' (basically a property list mapping keys to their translations).

var my_dictionary = {
    'some text':      'a translation',
    'some more text': 'another translation'
}
$.i18n.load(my_dictionary);

Once you've initialised it with a dictionary, you can translate strings using the $.i18n._() function, for example:

$('div#example').text($.i18n._('some text'));

or using $('selector')._t() function

$('div#example')._t('some text');

It's straightforward to pass dynamic data into your translations. First, add %s in the translation for each variable you want to swap in :

var my_dictionary = {
    "wildcard example"  : "We have been passed two values : %s and %s."
}
$.i18n.load(my_dictionary);

Next, pass values in sequence after the dictionary key when you perform the translation :

$('div#example').text($.i18n._('wildcard example', 100, 200));

or

$('div#example')._t('wildcard example', 100, 200);

This will output We have been passed two values : 100 and 200.

Because some languages will need to order arguments differently to english, you can also specify the order in which the variables appear :

var my_dictionary = {
    "wildcard example"  : "We have been passed two values : %2$s and %1$s."
}
$.i18n.load(my_dictionary);

$('div#example').text($.i18n._('wildcard example', 100, 200));

This will output: We have been passed two values: 200 and 100.

If you need to explicitly output the string %s in your translation, use %%s :

var my_dictionary = {
    "wildcard example"  : "I have %s literal %%s character."
}
$.i18n.load(my_dictionary);

$('div#example').text($.i18n._('wildcard example', 1));

This will output: I have 1 literal %%s character.

Use npm install to install the dependencies, and grunt to run the build.

• Version 1.1.1 (2014-01-05) : Use html() instead of text() when rendering translations.
• Version 1.1.0 (2013-12-31) : Use grunt, update printf implementation, setDictionary is now load (thanks to ktmud).
• Version 1.0.1 (2013-10-11) : Add bower support.
• Version 1.0.0 (2012-10-14) : 1.0 release - addition of a test suite (huge thanks to alexaitken), plus a major cleanup.

If you come across any problems, please create a ticket and we'll try to get it fixed as soon as possible.

Once you've made your commits:

1. Fork jquery-i18n
2. Create a topic branch - git checkout -b my_branch
3. Push to your branch - git push origin my_branch
4. Create a Pull Request from your branch
5. That's it!

Dave Perrett :: [email protected] :: @daveperrett

Copyright (c) 2010 Dave Perrett. See License for details.