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Setup with Vite

The Lingui Vite integration:

Setup with @vitejs/plugin-react​

@vitejs/plugin-react uses Babel to transform your code. LinguiJS relies on @lingui/babel-plugin-lingui-macro to compile JSX to ICU Message Format and for automatic ID generation.

  1. Install @lingui/cli, @lingui/vite-plugin, @lingui/babel-plugin-lingui-macro as development dependencies and @lingui/react as a runtime dependency:

    npm install --save-dev @lingui/cli @lingui/vite-plugin @lingui/babel-plugin-lingui-macro
    npm install --save @lingui/react

  2. Setup Lingui in vite.config.ts:

    info

    @vitejs/plugin-react does not use babel config (e.g. babel.rc) from your project by default. You have to enable it manually or specify babel options directly in vite.config.ts

    vite.config.ts
    import { defineConfig } from "vite";
    import react from "@vitejs/plugin-react";
    import { lingui } from "@lingui/vite-plugin";

    export default defineConfig({
      plugins: [
        react({
          babel: {
            plugins: ["@lingui/babel-plugin-lingui-macro"],
          },
        }),
        lingui(),
      ],
    });

Setup with @vitejs/plugin-react-swc​

@vitejs/plugin-react-swc uses SWC to transform your code, which is 20x faster than Babel. LinguiJS relies on @lingui/swc-plugin to compile JSX to ICU Message Format and for automatic ID generation.

  1. Install @lingui/cli, @lingui/swc-plugin as development dependencies and @lingui/react as a runtime dependency:

    npm install --save-dev @lingui/cli @lingui/vite-plugin @lingui/swc-plugin
    npm install --save @lingui/react

  2. Setup Lingui in vite.config.ts:

    vite.config.ts
    import { defineConfig } from "vite";
    import react from "@vitejs/plugin-react-swc";
    import { lingui } from "@lingui/vite-plugin";

    export default defineConfig({
      plugins: [
        react({
          plugins: [["@lingui/swc-plugin", {}]],
        }),
        lingui(),
      ],
    });

Further Setup​

  1. Create a lingui.config.ts file with LinguiJS configuration in the root of your project (next to package.json). Replace src with the directory name where you have source files:
lingui.config.ts
import type { LinguiConfig } from "@lingui/conf";

const config: LinguiConfig = {
  locales: ["en", "cs", "fr"],
  catalogs: [
    {
      path: "<rootDir>/src/locales/{locale}",
      include: ["src"],
    },
  ],
};

export default config;

PO format is recommended for message catalogs, and could be compiled on the fly thanks to @lingui/vite-plugin.

See format documentation for other available formats.

  1. Add the following scripts to your package.json:
package.json
{
  "scripts": {
    "messages:extract": "lingui extract"
  }
}

  1. Check the installation by running:

    npm run messages:extract

    There should be no error and you should see output similar following:

    > npm run messages:extract

    Catalog statistics:
    ┌──────────┬─────────────┬─────────┐
    │ Language │ Total count │ Missing │
    ├──────────┼─────────────┼─────────┤
    │ cs       │     0       │   0     │
    │ en       │     0       │   0     │
    │ fr       │     0       │   0     │
    └──────────┴─────────────┴─────────┘

    (use "lingui extract" to update catalogs with new messages)
    (use "lingui compile" to compile catalogs for production)

    This command should create .po catalogs in the src/locales/ folder:

    src
    └── locales
        ├── cs.po
        ├── en.po
        └── fr.po

  2. Import .po those files directly in your Vite processed code:

    export async function dynamicActivate(locale: string) {
      const { messages } = await import(`./locales/${locale}.po`);

      i18n.load(locale, messages);
      i18n.activate(locale);
    }
tip

Don't miss the Lingui ESLint Plugin which can help you find and prevent common l10n mistakes in your code.

See the guide about dynamic loading catalogs for more info.

See Vite's official documentation for more info about Vite dynamic imports.

Congratulations! You've successfully set up a Vite project with LinguiJS. Now it's a good time to follow the React tutorial or read about ICU Message Format which is used in messages.