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
- Icons
- Installation
- Building
- Localization
Screenshots: OS: Arch Linux | Desktop environment: Plasma | Theme: Breeze | Icons: Newaita | Wallpaper: Macaw
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 + R | Swap languages |
| 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 |
-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 |
-a, --audio-only |
Print text only for speaking when using --speak-translation or --speak-source |
-b, --brief |
Print only translations |
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()
└── method void io.crow_translate.CrowTranslate.MainWindow.quit()
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 open- CMake 3.14+
- Extra CMake Modules
- Png2Ico or IcoTool for generating executable icon (Windows)
- Qt 5.9+ with Widgets, Network, Multimedia, X11Extras (Linux), DBus (Linux) and WinExtras (Windows) modules
This project uses the following static libraries that already exists in the repository as submodules (you do not need to install in manually):
- QOnlineTranslator - provides free usage of Google, Yandex and Bing translate API.
- QGitTag - uses the GitHub API to provide information about releases.
- QHotkey - provides global shortcuts for desktop platforms.
- QTaskbarControl - allows to create a taskbar/launcher progress for all desktop platforms.
- SingleApplication - prevents launch of multiple application instances.
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.
Downloads are available on the Releases page. Also check out the website for installation from package.
You can build Crow Translate by using the following commands:
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. # Or `cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..` for single-configuration generators such as Ninja or GNU Make
cmake --build . # Or `cmake --build . --config Release` for multi-config generators such as Visual Studio Generators or XcodeYou will then get a binary named crow.
CMake allows to create specified package types automatically.
If you use Makefile, Ninja, or Xcode generator you can use package target:
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -D CPACK_GENERATOR=DEB .. # You can specify several types of packages separated by semicolons in double quotes, for example: `CPACK_GENERATOR="DEB;ZIP;NSIS"`
cmake --build . --target packageOr you can use CPack utility for any generators:
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. # Or `cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..` for single-configuration generators such as Ninja or GNU Make
cpack -G DEB # Or `cpack -G DEB -C Release` for multi-config generators such as Visual Studio Generators or XcodePORTABLE_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 configuration stage: cmake -D PORTABLE_MODE ...
To help with localization you can use Crowdin or translate files in data/translations with Qt Linguist directly. To add a new language, make a request on the Crowdin page or copy data/translations/crow-translate.ts to data/translations/crow-translate_<ISO 639-1 language code>_<ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 language code>.ts, translate it and send a pull request.