# react-intl-webpack-plugin
This plugin helps when using react-intl for internationalization of react apps.
## Workflow
1. Use `<FormattedMessage id="newItem" defaultMessage="Add item" />` for adding text in your react components.
2. Use the babel plugin `babel-plugin-react-intl` to extract them from your source code.
3. Use `react-intl-webpack-plugin` to combine them into one message file called `reactIntlMessages.json` and put this file into the webpack output path.
4. Use CAT (Computer Aided Translation) tools (like the cloud based memsource.com or okapi) to translate this file into the translated file. These tools use a concept called Translation Memory (TM) . This is a separate file where all translations are stored and with this file all translations can be reapplied to a newly generated `reactIntlMessages.json` file.
5. Save the TM file and the translated json file in a separate directory of your source code.
6. Use `reactIntlJson-loader` to load the translated files and convert them to messages.
## Installation
`npm install react-intl-webpack-plugin --save-dev`
webpack.config.js:
- add the plugin
```
var ReactIntlPlugin=require('react-intl-webpack-plugin');
...
plugins: [
...
new ReactIntlPlugin()
],
```
- modify your babel-loader to contain the `metadataSubscribers` option
```
module: {
loaders: [
...
{
test: /\.js?$/, loader: 'babel-loader',
query: {
"cacheDirectory": true,
"metadataSubscribers":[ReactIntlPlugin.metadataContextFunctionName],
"plugins": ["transform-runtime",
["react-intl", {
"enforceDescriptions": false
}]],
"presets": ['react', "es2015", "stage-1"]
}
},
```
- the generated file is called `reactIntlMessages.json`
## Options
You can pass a hash of configuration options to react-intl-webpack-plugin. Allowed values are as follows:
|Name|Type|Default|Description|
|:--:|:--:|:-----:|:----------|
|**[`filename`](#)**|`{String}`|`./reactIntlMessages.json`|The output filename|
## Notes
- Keep in mind that as long as you use webpack-dev-server all assets are generated in memory. To access those assets use either:
- the browser an check http://localhost:devServerPort/reactIntlMessages.json
- or, add a script to package.json like `"trans:refreshJsonDEV": "curl localhost:3100/reactIntlMessages.json >./dist/reactIntlMessages.json"`
- or start your webpack build to generate the assets into the build directory.
- If no messages are generated it could be helpful to cleanup the `cacheDirectory` of the babel-loader, or set `"cacheDirectory": false` temporarily
## License
MIT (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php)