Babel Shift is a Tauri v2 desktop app for editing large translation catalogs without pushing the full dataset into the React runtime. Rust owns parsing, mutation, pagination, and save-hook execution; the frontend renders a virtualized matrix and a focused details panel for long-form translation work.
- Tauri v2
- Rust with extensible translation adapters for Generic JSON and Properties Bundle files
- React 19 + TypeScript + Vite
- Tailwind CSS v4
- Zustand for frontend state
react-virtuosofor virtualized rendering
One-liner for macOS and Linux (available once the first release is published):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robflowk/babel-shift/main/install.sh | shDownloads the latest release, verifies it against the release's SHA256SUMS,
and installs to /Applications (macOS) or ~/.local/bin (Linux AppImage).
Pin a version with BABEL_SHIFT_VERSION=v0.1.0. Windows: use the installer
from the releases page
(winget planned).
pnpm install
pnpm tauri devsrc/components: UI shell, virtualized translation grid, focused editor panel, and status toastssrc/hooks: React hooks that coordinate deferred filtering and keyboard shortcutssrc/store: Zustand state for the workspace and IPC-backed mutationssrc-tauri/src/parser.rs: translation adapter trait and JSON / Properties Bundle parsing logicsrc-tauri/src/commands.rs: Tauri command handlers for load/query/update/save flowssrc-tauri/src/hooks.rs: on-save formatter execution wrappersrc-tauri/src/state.rs: shared application state stored behind Tauri-managed locks
Babel Shift is source-available under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0.
- Free for noncommercial use — personal projects, hobby work, research, education, and nonprofit organizations. Use it, modify it, share it.
- Commercial use requires a separate license from the author. A simple, fairly priced commercial license is planned but does not exist yet — if you want to use Babel Shift commercially today, open an issue or reach out.
- No enforcement, ever. There are no license keys, no activation, no phone-home, and no telemetry in this app, and there never will be. Whether you comply is between you and your conscience — this project runs on honesty.