This library modifies the Handlebars parser and precompiler in order to allow you to write messages in your native language into your handlebars templates, but then still switch them out for other languages and compile them into fast/small functions as messageformat.js does outside of handlebars.
This allows your templates to still contain the valuable context of your native language, but also allow the app to optimally compile into a minimal runtime.
There are additional features that help with providing additional context for translators. The format that's used here is custom as there is not a real standard, but does come from experience working with translators.
var Handlebars = require('mfbars')(require(
7246
'handlebars'));
// Then just use Handlebars as you normally would.{{#if friends}}
<article class="friend-count">
<p>
{{#_ "friend_count" .}}
You {friends, plural, offset:1
=0 {like this}
one {and one other friend like this}
other {and # other friends like this}
}.
{{/_}}
</p>
</article>
{{/if}}Handlebars.registerHelper('_mfbars_friend_count', function(data) {
var p = Messageformat.render;
var msg = function (d) {
return "You " + p(
d,
"friends",
1,
"en",
{
"0": "like this",
"one": "and one other friend like this",
"other": "and "+n(d,"friends",1)+" other friends like this"
}
) + "."
};
return msg(data);
});{{#if friends}}
<article class="friend-count">
<p>
{{_mfbars_friend_count .}}
</p>
</article>
{{/if}}If you specify another language to compile to, it will throw away the inline message and put in your specified translation. The only thing that changes is the output of the compiled Handlebars helpers. So feel free to compile this into a separate "package," but since rendering messages is required functionality, it's usually faster to just have whole separate builds of your app with each language embedded inside.