JSS Dictionary API
Often, multilingual apps need a dictionary of static phrases that require translation. Commonly, these are items such as form labels, global navigation items, footers, and so on.
Sitecore JavaScript Rendering SDK (JSS) provides an API to help you fetch application-specific translation dictionaries using the Sitecore Dictionary Service.
When using JSS, you can get dictionary data from several endpoints, without worrying about data fetching implementation details. The JSS Dictionary API abstracts data fetching implementation details into services, clients, and data fetchers for REST and GraphQL endpoints. See some usage examples.
After the dictionary data is available in the front-end application, you can choose how to utilize it and what internationalization libraries you prefer. For example, the React JSS application utilizes the i18next module with a custom plugin.
Sitecore endpoints for dictionary data
There are several options for fetching dictionary phrases from Sitecore:
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Call the REST Dictionary Service endpoint provided by Sitecore Headless Services. The Sitecore Dictionary Service endpoint is a REST endpoint providing app-specific dictionary data.
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Query the Sitecore Edge Preview GraphQL endpoint provided by Headless Services. Sitecore Edge Preview GraphQL API implements a GraphQL server on top of Sitecore. The Sitecore GraphQL schema mirrors the Experience Edge schema.
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Query the GraphQL endpoint provided by Sitecore Experience Edge for XM. Sitecore Experience Edge for XM has a read-only GraphQL schema to accommodate common front-end use cases for headless Sitecore development. Read about the Experience Edge schema. If you are building a very large website, you might have to enable retries for requests to the XM Cloud Experience Edge GraphQL endpoint for the build process to succeed.
You can choose whether to use REST or GraphQL endpoints when creating your JSS application with the --fetchWith REST parameter or the --fetchWith GraphQL parameter.