Storybook react-i18next addon

Easy react-i18next Storybook integration.

Required Peer Dependencies:

• storybook - >=6.5.0
• i18next - >=21.0.0
• i18next-browser-languagedetector - ^6.1.4
• i18next-http-backend: ^1.4.0
• react-i18next - >=11.17.0

This Storybook addon assumes your project is already set up with i18next and react-i18next, with all the required packages installed, and that it is properly configured and working.

Installation

Install this addon as a dev dependency.

npm i -D storybook-react-i18next

yarn add -D storybook-react-i18next

You will need to install i18next and react-i18next as dependencies to your project if they are not already installed.

npm i -S i18next react-i18next i18next-browser-languagedetector i18next-http-backend

yarn add i18next react-i18next i18next-browser-languagedetector i18next-http-backend

Usage

After installing, follow these 3 steps to enable this addon in Storybook.

main.js

Insert this addon into your addons array:

{
    addons: [
        // other addons...
        'storybook-react-i18next',
    ];
}

i18next.js

Create a file in your .storybook folder called i18next.js (or whatever you like).

In this file, copy and paste the below code and make whatever modifications you need (paths to resource files, languages, etc.).

import {initReactI18next} from 'react-i18next';
import i18n from 'i18next';
import Backend from 'i18next-http-backend';
import LanguageDetector from 'i18next-browser-languagedetector';

const ns = ['common'];
const supportedLngs = ['en', 'fr', 'ja'];
const resources = ns.reduce((acc, n) => {
    supportedLngs.forEach((lng) => {
        if (!acc[lng]) acc[lng] = {};
        acc[lng] = {
            ...acc[lng],
            [n]: require(`../public/locales/${lng}/${n}.json`),
        };
    });
    return acc;
}, {});

i18n.use(initReactI18next)
    .use(LanguageDetector)
    .use(Backend)
    .init({
        //debug: true,
        lng: 'en',
        fallbackLng: 'en',
        defaultNS: 'common',
        ns,
        interpolation: {escapeValue: false},
        react: {useSuspense: false},
        supportedLngs,
        resources,
    });

export default i18n;

Refer to the i18next Configuration Options documentation for detailed information about the configuration options.

preview.js

In your preview.js, you need to add the locales and locale parameters, as well as the i18n that you exported from the above file.

locales is an object where the keys are the "ids" of the locales/languages and the values are the names you want to display in the dropdown.

locale is what you want the default locale to be.

import i18n from './i18next.js';

export const parameters = {
    i18n,
    locale: 'en',
    locales: {
        en: 'English',
        fr: 'Français',
        ja: '日本語',
    },
};

You can also use full locale strings as keys. It depends on your i18next configuration.

import i18n from './i18next.js';

export const parameters = {
    i18n,
    locale: 'en_US',
    locales: {
        en_US: 'English (US)',
        en_GB: 'English (GB)',
        fr_FR: 'Français',
        ja_JP: '日本語',
    },
};

The locales object can also have values as an object with keys of title, left, or right.

This is useful if you want to include an emoji flag or some other string to the left or right side.

For example:

import i18n from './i18next.js';

export const parameters = {
    i18n,
    locale: 'en',
    locales: {
        en: {title: 'English', left: '🇺🇸'},
        fr: {title: 'Français', left: '🇫🇷'},
        ja: {title: '日本語', left: '🇯🇵'},
    },
};

Or something like this:

import i18n from './i18next.js';

export const parameters = {
    i18n,
    locale: 'en_US',
    locales: {
        en_US: {title: 'English', right: 'US'},
        en_GB: {title: 'English', right: 'GB'},
        fr_FR: {title: 'Français', right: 'FR'},
        ja_JP: {title: '日本語', right: 'JP'},
    },
};

Once you have finished these steps and launch storybook, you should see a globe icon in the toolbar.

Clicking this globe icon will show a dropdown with the locales you defined in parameters.

Switching locales will use the strings defined in your locale json files.