Crow Translate is a simple and lightweight translator programmed in C++ / Qt that allows to translate and speak text using Google, Yandex and Bing translate API. You may also be interested in my library QOnlineTranslator used in this project.
- Screenshots
- Features
- Default keyboard shortcuts
- CLI commands
- D-Bus API
- Dependencies
- Third-party
- Installation
- Building
- Localization
Screenshots: OS: Arch Linux | Desktop environment: Plasma | Theme: Breeze | Icons: Papirus | Wallpaper: Catalina
Screenshots: OS: Windows 10 | Theme: default | Wallpaper: WallpapersCraft
- Translate and speak text in any application that supports text selection
- Support 117 different languages
- Low memory consumption (~20MB)
- Highly customizable shortcuts
- Command-line interface with rich options
- D-Bus API
- Available for Linux and Windows
You can change them in the settings. Some key sequences may not be available due to OS limitations.
Wayland does not support global shortcuts registration, but you can use D-Bus to bind actions in the system settings. For desktop environments that support additional applications actions (KDE, for example) you will see them predefined in the system shortcut settings. You can also use them for X11 sessions, but you need to disable global shortcuts registration in the application settings to avoid conflicts.
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + Alt + E | Translate selected text |
| Ctrl + Alt + S | Speak selected text |
| Ctrl + Alt + F | Speak translation of selected text |
| Ctrl + Alt + G | Stop speaking |
| Ctrl + Alt + C | Show main window |
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + Return | Translate |
| Ctrl + Q | Close window |
| Ctrl + S | Speak source / pause text speaking |
| Ctrl + Shift + S | Speak translation / pause text speaking |
| Ctrl + Shift + C | Copy translation to clipboard |
The program also has a console interface.
Usage: crow [options] text
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
-h, --help |
Display help |
-v, --version |
Display version information |
-c, --codes |
Display language codes |
-a, --audio-only |
Print text only for speaking when using --speak-translation or --speak-source |
-s, --source <code> |
Specify the source language (by default, engine will try to determine the language on its own) |
-t, --translation <code> |
Specify the translation language(s), splitted by '+' (by default, the system language is used) |
-l, --locale <code> |
Specify the translator language (by default, the system language is used) |
-e, --engine <engine> |
Specify the translator engine ('google', 'yandex' or 'bing'), Google is used by default |
-p, --speak-translation |
Speak the translation |
-u, --speak-source |
Speak the source |
-f, --file |
Read source text from files. Arguments will be interpreted as file paths |
-i, --stdin |
Add stdin data to source text |
Note: If you do not pass startup arguments to the program, the GUI starts.
Currently available only for global shortcuts.
io.crow_translate.CrowTranslate
└── /io/crow_translate/CrowTranslate/MainWindow
├── method void io.crow_translate.CrowTranslate.MainWindow.copyTranslatedSelection()
├── method void io.crow_translate.CrowTranslate.MainWindow.open()
├── method void io.crow_translate.CrowTranslate.MainWindow.speakSelection()
├── method void io.crow_translate.CrowTranslate.MainWindow.speakTranslatedSelection()
├── method void io.crow_translate.CrowTranslate.MainWindow.stopSpeaking()
└── method void io.crow_translate.CrowTranslate.MainWindow.translateSelection()
For example, you can show main window using dbus-send:
dbus-send --type=method_call --dest=io.crow_translate.CrowTranslate /io/crow_translate/CrowTranslate/MainWindow io.crow_translate.CrowTranslate.MainWindow.openOr via qdbus:
qdbus io.crow_translate.CrowTranslate /io/crow_translate/CrowTranslate/MainWindow io.crow_translate.CrowTranslate.MainWindow.open
# or shorter
qdbus io.crow_translate.CrowTranslate /io/crow_translate/CrowTranslate/MainWindow openArch Linux: qt5-base qt5-multimedia qt5-x11extras gst-plugins-good openssl
Debian: gstreamer1.0-fluendo-mp3, qtgstreamer-plugins-qt5, gstreamer1.0-plugins-good, gstreamer1.0-alsa, gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio, libqt5multimedia5-plugins
This project uses the following third-party libraries:
- QOnlineTranslator - my library that provides free usage of Google, Yandex and Bing translate API for Qt5.
- QHotkey - A global shortcut/hotkey for Desktop Qt-Applications.
- QTaskbarControl - Сreate a taskbar/launcher progress and more, for all desktop platforms.
- SingleApplication - A simple single instance application for Qt.
Therefore, if you want to clone this project, you need to use the --recursive option:
git clone --recursive [email protected]:crow-translate/crow-translate.gitor you can initialize these modules later:
git clone [email protected]:crow-translate/crow-translate.git
git submodule init
git submodule updateOnly Linux supports icon theming. Windows use Papirus icons.
FlagKit icons are used for flags.
You can download the installer or archive from the releases page.
You can also install crow-translate from scoop.
You can install crow-translate or crow-translate-git from AUR.
The package is available on the releases page.
You can install the package from the Fedora Copr.
You can use the automatic script that builds Crow Translate and creates a package for your distribution:
cd dist/unix
./create-package.shThan you can install it as usual. The script will tell you where the package will be after the making. Currently, only Arch Linux, Debian and their derivatives are supported.
You can build Crow Translate by using the following commands:
qmake # Or qmake-qt5 in some distributions
make
make cleanYou will then get a binary named crow.
PORTABLE_MODE- Enable portable functionality. If you create file namedsettings.iniin the app folder and Crow will store the configuration in it. It also adds the “Portable Mode” option to the application settings, which does the same.
Build parameters are passed at the qmake stage: qmake "DEFINES += PORTABLE_MODE".
To help with localization you can use Transifex or translate files in data/translations with Qt Linguist directly. To add a new language, make a request on the Transifex page or copy data/translations/crow.ts to data/translations/crow_<ISO 639-1 language code>.ts, translate it and send a pull request.