How to add online dictionaries like google translate to GoldenDict?

Question

How to add online dictionaries feature (mainly google translator) for GoldenDict

Right now a discussed solution is in html with an iframe. Is there a simple translation script/app that read a sting variable in and return it translated ?

Solution

Translate-shell

Translate-shell use different online translation services... we could integrate the whole application or some of it's source to provide translation to goldendict.

https://github.com/soimort/translate-shell

Quick Solution Using Translate-Shell

GoldenDict have a Programs feature in the dictionary settings section so an easy way to add an online translation feature would be to use one of those two command line tools translate-shell or the python script doodle-translate

As an example of French/English translation with google under Program section we would just add

trans -e google -s en -t fr -show-original y -show-original-phonetics n -show-translation y -no-ansi -show-translation-phonetics n -show-prompt-message n -show-languages y -show-original-dictionary n -show-dictionary n -show-alternatives n "%GDWORD%"

and

trans -e google -s fr -t en -show-original y -show-original-phonetics n -show-translation y -no-ansi -show-translation-phonetics n -show-prompt-message n -show-languages y -show-original-dictionary n -show-dictionary n -show-alternatives n "%GDWORD%"

Microsoft Windows Alternative

For windows the same solution could be used but with python + translate or may be cygwin + translate-shell

Here is a capture

Comments

[ITFan]

Can we make it work on Windows ?

[intika]

@ITFan i updated the answer, for windows the same solution could be used but with python + translate or may be cygwin + translate-shell

[ITFan]

@ intika pypi.org/project/translate uses Microsoft Translation API not Google translate. I've compared the results and found it's slower and worse comparing to Google translate.

[intika]

then may be the cygwin solution (i did not test it tho) or gnuwin32.sourceforge.net

[ITFan]

I followed this thread softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/11919/… but then got these errors when run "sh trans" in cmd.exe /usr/bin/trans: trans: line 5630: syntax error near unexpected token (' /usr/bin/trans: trans: line 5630: gawk -f <(echo -E "$TRANS_PROGRAM") - "$@"' Do you have any idea ?

[intika]

you may want to try WSL or MSYS2 github.com/soimort/translate-shell#system-requirements and if it does not work open an issue on the projet page on github... also not sure if its related but have a look at github.com/soimort/translate-shell/issues/146

[ITFan]

WSL works. But how could I use it as an external program with Goldendict since Translate-Shell in WSL need to be called with Bash instead of CMD.exe ?

[intika]

i believe you can do that with cmd bash -c "<command>" check out the documentation docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/reference

[ITFan]

Yeah, bash trans worked ! (without -c) Thanks very much !

[ARNAB]

How can we pass the entire string? GDWORD seems to only pass the first word of the text passed. With google translate we have the option to translate sentences.

[intika]

"%GDWORD%" you probably forget the quotes this should work with the whole text @RichieHH

[ARNAB]

Yup, I spotted that this morning! Silly me. Thanks anyway.