This is Phase 1 of multi-language support: the visible chrome (header,
footer, language switcher) and routing are wired up for all 9 locales
(en, es, pt-br, it, fr, zh-cn, de, ja, ru) — same set the blog at
velxio.dev/blog/ already supports. The Editor and the long-form
landing-page copy are still English-only and will be translated in a
follow-up.
Infrastructure
- frontend/src/i18n/config.ts: locale registry + LOCALE_META (htmlLang,
native name, og locale, dir). Mirrors pro/blog/src/i18n/config.ts so
cookie sync stays consistent.
- frontend/src/i18n/cookie.ts: read/write the velxio_locale cookie at
Path=/; Max-Age=1y; SameSite=Lax (Secure on HTTPS). The blog reads
the same cookie via an inline script in its Layout.astro.
- frontend/src/i18n/path.ts: getLocaleFromPath / stripLocaleFromPath /
localizedPath / switchLocale / blogUrlFor — match the blog's helpers
one-to-one.
- frontend/src/i18n/index.ts: i18next bootstrap. English bundle is
inlined synchronously for first paint; non-default locales are
lazy-loaded via dynamic import on demand. Initial locale is decided
in priority order URL > cookie > navigator > en.
- frontend/src/i18n/LocaleSync.tsx: top-level wrapper inside <Router>.
On every URL change loads the matching locale bundle, calls
i18n.changeLanguage, writes the cookie, and mirrors the locale onto
<html lang> and dir.
- frontend/src/i18n/useLocalizedNavigate.ts: useCurrentLocale,
useLocalizedHref, useLocalizedNavigate hooks for components that
build internal links.
Routing
- App.tsx: route table extracted to a single ROUTES array, then
registered twice — once at the root (default English) and once
nested under each non-default locale (`/<locale>/...`). Explicit
per-locale parent routes (rather than a generic `:lang` param) so
React Router never accidentally swallows a real top-level path
like `/circuit-simulator` as a locale segment.
Header / Footer
- LanguageSwitcher.tsx + .css: dropdown matching the blog's
LanguageSwitcher.astro. Globe icon + locale code on the trigger,
native names + ISO codes in the menu. Click → `switchLocale()`
rewrites the URL under the new locale; LocaleSync handles the
rest (load bundle, change language, write cookie).
- AppHeader.tsx: every nav label and the auth dropdown copy now
goes through `t('header.nav.*')`, `t('header.auth.*')`. All
internal Links wrapped with localize() so navigation stays
inside the active locale. Added a "Blog" link computed via
`blogUrlFor(currentLocale)` so /es/ → /blog/es/, etc.
- LandingPage.tsx: footer About-Velxio paragraph reads from
t('footer.about').
Translations (Phase 1 strings)
- frontend/src/i18n/locales/<locale>/common.json: nav labels, auth
buttons, footer About copy. Hand-translated for all 9 locales,
AGPLv3 / brand names preserved as-is.
Tooling
- frontend/scripts/translate-i18n.mjs: standalone Node script that
takes the en.json bundles and auto-translates them to the 8 other
locales via DeepSeek (primary) + Gemini (fallback). One LLM call
per (locale, namespace) pair. Run after extracting new strings
with `npm run translate:i18n`.
Phase 2 (deferred)
- Editor (toolbar, file explorer, simulator canvas, component picker,
library manager, error toasts) — hundreds of strings.
- Examples / Docs / About / Profile pages.
- The translate-i18n.mjs script is ready to handle these once the
strings have been extracted into JSON keys.