Localizing strings not stored in a database

Question

Localizing strings not stored in a database

We've decided to add support for multiple languages to our web app.

We use Handlebars for templating on the front end, and Node + Jade for templating on the back-end.

For strings that are not stored in the database (all of the strings that are part of the UI), is there a recommended way of going about this? (Does it make any difference whether we add the strings to the templates on the front-end or the back-end?).

javascript
node.js
localization
jade
handlebars.js

Answer 1

One approach I have taken with javascript-based localizations is to create a collection of files (one file per language), each containing a language object that could be loaded either client side or in node to provide the localizations. You just load the file needed based on the language.

This is a simple example:

var localization = {
    stringkey1: 'Some string value',
    stringkey2: 'Some other value',
    // etc.
}

Obviously if you have a large application with lots of strings, you may want to further break up the localizations so you don't need to work with excessively large objects.

The good thing with this approach is that you could use the same localization library both server-side and client-side without any modification.