fbtee

fbtee (Far Better Translations, Extended Edition) is an internationalization framework for JavaScript & React designed to be powerful, flexible, and intuitive.

Why fbtee?

• Inline Translations for Better Developer Experience: Embed translations directly into your code. No need to manage translation keys or wrap your code with t() functions. fbtee uses a compiler to extract strings from your code and prepare them for translation providers.
• Proven in Production: Built on Facebook's fbt, with over a decade of production usage, serving billions of users and one year of production usage in Athena Crisis.
• Optimized Performance with IR: Compiles translations into an Intermediate Representation (IR) for extracting strings, and optimizes the runtime output for performance.
• Easy Setup: Quick integration with tools like Babel and Vite means you can get started instantly.

Status: Ready for Early Adopters

This is a fork of Facebook's original fbt library, which has been archived. The aim of this fork is to create the best and most modern internationalization library for JavaScript & React.

Getting Started

fbtee requires at least Node 22, and React 19 if you are using React.

npm install fbtee @nkzw/babel-fbtee

In your vite.config.ts:

import fbteePreset from '@nkzw/babel-fbtee';
import react from '@vitejs/plugin-react';

export default {
  plugins: [
    react({
      babel: {
        presets: [fbteePreset],
      },
    }),
  ],
};

fbtee uses three scripts to manage translations. These scripts help automate the process of collecting, creating, and compiling translations. It is recommended to add them to your package.json:

{
  "scripts": {
    "fbtee:collect": "fbtee collect --manifest < .src_manifest.json > .source_strings.json",
    "fbtee:manifest": "fbtee manifest --src src",
    "fbtee:translate": "fbtee translate --translations translations/*.json --jenkins > src/translations.json"
  }
}

Run these commands to set up the initial translation files:

npm run fbtee:manifest && npm run fbtee:collect && npm run fbtee:translate

The files generated by these commands are auto-generated and should not be checked into version control. Add the following entries to your .gitignore:

.src_manifest.json
.source_strings.json
.enum_manifest.json
src/translations.json

Next, set up fbtee in your app's initialization code (e.g., src/index.tsx):

import { IntlVariations, setupFbtee } from 'fbtee';
import translations from './translations.json';

setupFbtee({
  hooks: {
    getViewerContext: () => ({
      GENDER: IntlVariations.GENDER_UNKNOWN,
      locale: 'en_US',
    }),
  },
  translations,
});

Finally, if you are using React and TypeScript in your project, you need to add TypeScript types for fbtee to enable proper type checking in JSX. You can do this by referencing the ReactTypes.d.ts file in your main index.tsx file or a global type declaration file (e.g., types.d.ts):

/// <reference types="fbtee/ReactTypes.d.ts" />

You’re now ready to go!

Usage

If you want to learn by example, check out the examples directory.

All strings need to be wrapped by <fbt> (for React/JSX) or fbt() (for JavaScript). This ensures strings can be extracted and translated properly. The desc attribute is required and provides context for translators, helping them understand the intended meaning of the string.

Here are some basic examples:

const Greeting = () => <div>Hello, World!</div>;

You can wrap the string with <fbt>:

const Greeting = () => (
  <div>
    <fbt desc="Greeting">Hello, World!</fbt>
  </div>
);

<fbt> is a special React component that marks text for translation. The fbtee compiler analyzes them to extract strings, and compiles them into an Intermediate Representation (IR). It supports dynamic content through fbt:param or even other React components. For example, if you want to greet a specific user based on a name passed as a prop, you can use <fbt:param>:

const Greeting = ({ name }) => (
  <div>
    <fbt desc="Greeting">
      Hello, <fbt:param name="name">{name}</fbt:param>!
    </fbt>
  </div>
);

fbtee allows you to use regular React Components inside of <fbt> which will automatically create <fbt:param> calls for you:

const Greeting = ({ name }) => (
  <div>
    <fbt desc="Greeting">
      Hello, <Name name={name} />!
    </fbt>
  </div>
);

Note: <fbt> is auto-imported for you by the @nkzw/babel-fbtee plugin.

After marking your strings for translation with <fbt>, run the following commands to extract, and compile translations:

npm run fbtee:collect

You can now upload the .source_strings.json file to your translation provider. Once you have the translated strings stored in a translations/ folder as JSON files, you can run the following command to generate the translations file:

npm run fbtee:translate

After generating the translations file, your app is ready to display translated content in other languages.

What's better about fbtee than fbt?

Facebook has done an amazing job with fbt, an internationalization library that has been successfully used in production at Facebook for over 10 years. Their work provided a strong foundation for modern localization tools.

The open-source version of fbt, however, became unmaintained, difficult to set up, and incompatible with modern tools. It was eventually archived in November 2024. fbtee builds on this foundation with several improvements:

• Easier Setup: fbtee works with modern tools like Vite.
• Fully Typed:
• Improved React Compatibility: Removed React-specific hacks and added support for implicit React fragments (<>).
• Enhanced Features: Fixed and exported intlList, which was not functional in the original fbt.
• Modernized Codebase: Rewritten using TypeScript, ES modules (ESM), eslint, and modern JavaScript standards. Removed cruft and legacy code.
• Updated Tooling: Uses modern tools like pnpm, Vite, and esbuild for faster and more efficient development of fbtee.

fbtee remains compatible with fbt and migration is straightforward.

Migration from fbt:

fbtee is compatible with fbt. If you are already using fbt, migrating to fbtee is straightforward:

• Follow the "Getting Started" guide above and remove all "fbt" related packages.
• Make sure you are using React 19.
• Replace import { fbt } from 'fbt' with import { fbt } from 'fbtee'.
• Rename commands from fbt-collect, fbt-manifest and fbt-translate to fbtee-collect, fbtee-manifest and fbtee-translate.
• If you were using CommonJS modules for common strings or enums, convert them to ES modules.
• Ensure you are using the latest version of Node.js 22 or later.
• Rename your init({}) call to setupFbtee({}).

After these changes, your project should work seamlessly with fbtee.

Note: Some legacy behavior and options were removed from fbtee. If you have a complex setup, please consider reaching out to us for help.

Credits

• fbt was originally created by Facebook.
• The auto-import plugin was created by @alexandernanberg.
• Nakazawa Tech rewrote fbt into fbtee and continues to maintain this project.

Support

• Check out the #fbtee channel on Reactiflux's Discord server.