Rosetta Stone v4.0 - now in Unicode - translates 53 languages now

[jennico]

Hello World !

0. Introduction To Rosetta Stone:

========================

Rosetta Stone is a smooth and small online translation tool with advanced, very comfortable features, powerful and easy to use. It is able to translate texts of nearly any size (in fact there seems to be a limit) from 51 languages to 53 languages in any combination with astonishing grammatical abilities.

List of supported translation languages:

Central and Western Europe: German, English, French, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Welsh, Latin

Nordic Languages: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Icelandic

East and South East Europe: Russian (cirillic and latin)*, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Turkish

Asia: Persian (Farsi), Filipino (Tagalog), Japanese (Katakana), Japanese (Hiragana), Korean, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Bengali, Hindi (ITRANS Sanskrit Transliterated)

Africa and Middle East: Hebrew, Yiddish, Arabic, Azeri, Armenian

America: Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese

Rosetta Stone supports nine interface languages: German, English, French, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Greek and Russian.

Rosetta Stone allows you to translate entire texts "on the fly" by reading and writing to the clipboard in "silent mode" (without the interface).

Rosetta Stone automatically changes the writing direction to "Left-To-Right" on Arabic based languages and others.

Binational and mulinational writing supported as well as bidirectional writing.

Rosetta Stone can (in embedded Macro Mode) read out the marked text in your document and translate it by one click (without the interface).

In Export Mode, Rosetta Stone will export your translations directly and automatically into a preselected text file. Build up your own personal dictionary !

If selected, Rosetta Stone returns alternative / equivalent / similar and categorized translations (see below => advanced options).

New feature: For every selected language the specific natonal keyboard (virtual) is available in order to support your input.

* The language pair "Russian" to "Russian (lat.)" will transscribe any cyrillic input into latin characters. So, if you want to transscribe from Ukrainian or Bulgarian, you may choose "Russian" to "Russian (lat.)" as well (without intertranslation).

Have fun !

1. Requirements before using Rosetta Stone:

===============================

! Very important !

Most of the here presented languages cannot be displayed properly on a Western, European or English codepage configurated computer. You will have to change the display code from ANSI (16 bit = 256 displayable characters) to "Unicode" (32 bit = 65536 displayable characters). Unicode supplies all the world´s language characters. You will still be able to use your PC like before, but now you can use and display any language, not only in IE. There will be no disadvantages in doing this. If you don´t change your system to Unicode you will be unsatisfied with Rosetta Stone´s abilities. Here are the instructions: (You will have to do this only once and never again, you can always change back to your original code page, but you will never want to do it !)

1. Open Internet Explorer

2. Click View (on the menu bar), then Encoding => More => Chinese Traditional (BIG5).

(The same can be achieved by installing the Asian language support from the WinXP CD via Control Panel => Region Settings => Languages) Please also check the second checkbox for complex and bidirectional languages !

3. Follow the directions on screen to install the language pack from your Windows CD. After installation is completed, you may need to restart your computer.

4. When you are able to use your browser again, make sure the browser is UTF-8 encoded by clicking once more: View (on the menu bar), then Encoding => Unicode (UTF-8)

Remark: Unicode is not supported by Win9x OS or lower and Rosetta Stone will not work on these systems !

If you use IE with a popup blocker: In order to obtain full functionality of "imTranslator", please navigate to the two websites: "http://freetranslation.paralink.com/" and "http://translator.imtranslator.net" and deactivate Popup Blocking for these sites. They will not pop up any window, but the Popup Blocker prevents these sites from actualizating and translating on some special functions.

2. Installing Rosetta Stone:

===================

Rosetta Stone now comes with an installation routine. You will be guided through the process. During installation about 1000 graphic files will be downloaded from the Microsoft website and others. So please open Internet connection and firewall. The process will take about 6 minutes.

The downloaded files will be installed in new subfolders to the basic script. If you use both "Twin Programs" Rosetta Stone and "Unicode Keyboard", put them together into the same directory, so that they will share these files.

If you have to skip a file during installation because it is temporarily unavailable, it will be downloaded on next session.

Deinstallation: No system changes will be made. Simply delete the "Unicode" folder.

3. The Graphical User Interface:

=======================

Be sure to enter texts grammatically and orthographically correct or you will receive really weird translations ! Try to simplify the input text and use short sentences. Do not use abbreviations like "it´s", "can´t" or "No.1". Dots are only allowed to mark the end of a sentence ! Be aware that the English language is often ambiguous. There is no differenciation between nouns, verbs and adjectives, no conjugation of verbs and sometimes no plural (e.g. "you" has an uncountable amount of meanings), which makes an exact translation difficult.

You can select out of 51 input and 53 output languages. Some combinations cannot be translated directly. Rosetta Stone then will offer a "transit" language. Usually English will be the better transit language, but in some cases you can select French instead and compare the significance of the translations (Radio buttons). For this reason I added the option to choose a transit language even in case that a direct translation is available.

On typing do not use the Return button, as this will initialize the translation. Any formatting will be ignored and stripped anyway. If you want to exclude a word from translation (e.g. names), wrap the word in "x"´s (e.g. "In xNewx xYorkx I was born").

National Flags: => clicking either of them will open an additional window for flag based language selection. You might enjoy the clearer overwiew.

Checkbox "Automatic" : => forces Rosetta Stone to translate the input text immediately on change of result or transit language without using the translate button.

Button "Replace" : => exchanges the input text with clipboard text. Action can be undone by clicking button once more.

Button "Copy" : => copies result text to clipboard. This also works with East European and Asian characters.

Buttons "Fonts" : => change the two edit box fonts. Remark: Confirming the dialog box without changes will reset fonts to default.

Button "<<<" : => decently opens the flap with advanced options (see below).

Button "Delete" : => deletes both edit box texts. Action can be undone by clicking button once more.

Button "Translate It" : => Translate It !

Button "Exit" : => Saves all settings and current texts on exit.

Keyboard Label: => Opens and closes a virtual national keyboard (according to Windows code page definitions) of the selected input language.

For Chinese, I implicated a special "phonetical" keyboard. It covers some 20.000 different characters.

If there is no specific keyboard layout for a language, it will be opened the Multinational keyboard which provides all characters of the latin (Western) languages.

You will find some unknown keys on the bottom row of the keyboard. The four left bottom keys are only used with Right-to-Left languages like Farsi, Arabic and Hebrew. The first two will mark a change of typing direction within a script from right to left and v.v. The other two buttons are for joining special Arabic and Thai characters together (they are typed more or less onto each other).

The "nbsp" button will type a non-breaking space. This means, a line will not be broken on such a space (No effect on translation).

The button ("<>") will change the general writing direction of the entire document (right-left, left-right, no effect on translation).

The light red buttons are nonspacing "Deadkeys". They wait for a subsequent key to type an accent on it. A tooltip will inform you of the exspected letters

You will also find keyboards with so-called "Combining Diacritical Marks". They work similar to the nonspacing DeadKeys, but the letter is typed first and the accent (diacritic) afterwards. I find this method more practical.

All keyboards have three levels: Basic - Shift - AltGr.

The national keyboards may slightly differ from the real ones in order to contain more characters or for practical reasons.

Possible (silent) error messages:

no connection to translation service: check internet connection, try again later (heavy traffic / busy ?), or text too long.

no translation possible: check if you selected the wrong input language ?, or (if text is only one word): word unknown or the same as origin (identical in and output will return an error message).

returns only question marks or empty squares: you will have to install the Unicode character pack (see above).

"Service not available"

"Bad IP" (I have no idea what that means.)

"<<<Unexpected Error>>>"

4. The Tray functions:

================

= Left click on tray icon will maximize and activate Rosetta Stone.

= Double click on on tray icon will automatically translate the clipboard content "on the fly" and in "silent mode". The translation will automatically be copied to the clipboard. This function is also available while the main window is minimized. A tooltip window and notification sound will inform you about the process result. Silent mode can be also activated by using the global hotkey "alt + s". This feature is extremely useful when you have to translate a text without losing focus on your work. Just mark and copy the text, activate silent mode and copy the result from clipboard into in your text.

= Right click on tray icon opens extended options:

Exit

Abort:

To be used if Rosetta Stone hangs up or if you are impatient.

About

Help (this file)

Language Selection

Settings:

Show clipboard text in a tooltip window

This will display the clipboard content neatly "line feeded" in a balloon window near the "Replace" button, so you will be enabled to manage your clipboard. The tooltip will be hidden when Rosetta Stone is not active or minimized.

Macro or "Embedded Mode"

This will create a "Rosetta Stone Button" in the title bar of your currently active window. Simply mark (no need to copy) the text you want to be translated and click the Rosetta Stone button (or hit the hotkey "alt + v"). The translation will be put to clipboard and displayed in a balloon window. You can copy the result into your document or just use it to read foreign texts (e.g. in Internet Explorer). The tooltip will be hidden when you move or change your active window. This mode is an extremly useful combination of silent and tooltip mode. Note: the Macro will disappear from the screen if there is no active window.

Just give it a try translating a chapter of this help file !

Export Mode

This will export your translation results into a text file. You will be prompted to select an export file and then set the export options. If you choose "prompt" instead of "always" you will be asked if you want to export the current translation. During this dialog you can alter the input and output text which will then be exported to the chosen file. The export works with all languages with the exception of Korean. I am not sure about the reason for that but I will try to solve that problem.

This feature allows you to easily save your translated texts and put together split translations. On Single Word Translations you can build up your own personal dictionary with the help of Export Mode.

For your information, with Export Mode switched on you you will find an "@" next to the copy button.

Silent Mode translation (see above)

Minimize Rosetta Stone

Restore ( and activate ) Rosetta Stone

5. Hotkeys:

========

All functions are "hotkeyed" by "alt" + the corresponding underlined character. All hotkeys will be deactivated while Rosetta Stone is not active or minimized ( with the exception of Silent Mode "alt + s", Macro Button "alt + v" and Restore "alt + r" (in German "alt + w"), which will be globally available ! ).

6. The advanced options:

==================

Between the two edit boxes you will find the possibility to select the translation engine directly. For normal use there will be no need to change the default selection, but at times you might find it useful to compare the results. Each engine has two radio buttons in order to enable the selection of each step in case of intertranslation.

Furthermore every engine can be preselected as default engine by checking the checkboxes. Rosetta Stone will then prefer the selected engine if possible. You can deselect all engines, too.

imTranslator: [Alt+1]

The engine used by Google and Babelfish. The best engine for translations between German, English, French, Italian, Dutch, Portugese, Spanish, Greek, Russian, Japanese (Hiragana), Korean and Chinese. Very fast and reliable translations, large texts will be translated with high precision and huge vocabulary.

LEC ("Global Translation Service"): [Alt+2]

Apparently a German engine with great abilities. All combinations direct. Very reliable and fast. The second choice after imTrans. Unfortunately there is a limit in text size and daily translations per user. Rosetta Stone will split large texts if necessary and possible in order to avoid the text size limit.

TranslationBooth: [Alt+3]

Very good and reliable but very slow engine with a moderate but mostly sufficient grammar. Offers lots of languages. Seems to be specialized on Asian, Skandinavian and East European languages. The third choice.

InterTran: [Alt+4]

Offers a big variety of translation combinations (lots of them direct). Automatically uses English transit when direct translation is not available. Attempts to detect possible input language on receiving wrong input and returns the supposed translation instead of an error message. Returns alternative translations for every word in texts with less than 25 words.

Disadvantages: slow server, low precision of translation (selects always the first translation alternative), no grammatical ability, no reliability on bigger texts. Occasionally returns senseless letters due to bad HTML script. The engine is very useful on single word translations and limited texts. Best use it as a dictionary to achieve equivalent translations, synoymas and different meanings of words. Though poor vocabulary.

Ectaco / Lingvosoft: [Alt+5]

Only single word translation, best from and to English. Nearly all languages are supported, but the availability changes from day to day and word to word. Great engine to play around with, huge slang vocabulary ! Unique is the "Multilingual" output ! Results are grammatically categorized and similar entries are linked (Rosetta Stone will pop up the links). Unfortunately seems to have problems with national Latin characters (e.g. ä,ö,ü,ß,é,è,ê,...), but strangely enough not with non latin characters. Category list (incomplete):

A Adjective

ABBR Abbreviation

ADV Adverb

ART Article

AUX Auxiliary

CONJ Conjunction

ID Composed Expression

INTRJ Interjection

S Substantive (Noun)

NUM Numeral

PART Participle

PHR Phrase

PREF Prefix

PREP Preposition

PRON Pronoun

SUFF Suffix

V Verb

[sl.] Slang

[vulg.] Vulgar

[poet.] Poetry

[filos.] Philosophy

7. Troubleshooting:

==============

On translating to non-Latin characters (East-European and Asian languages) the output box display might be interferred by "Microsoft Script Debugger". The corresponding process is named "vs7jit.exe". On this event confirm to open the debugger, go to Extras => Options => Debugger and deactivate debugging. You can select and deselect the script debugging also in "Internet Settings" (IE => Extras => Internet Options => Tab Advanced => 2 Checkboxes "deactivate Script debugging").

In case Rosetta Stone freezes and is not accessible any more it can always be terminated by clicking the tray "Abort" (will restatrt) or "Exit".

I am obliged to mention that the implemented flags and button graphics are taken with friendly permission from the following websites:

>>> "FOTW Flags Of The World website at http://flagspot.net/flags/" © by Juan Manuel Gabino Villascán <<<.

>>> "Flags courtesy of www.theodora.com/flags used with permission" <<<.

>>> http://www.aaa-buttons.com <<<.

>>> http://www.flagsonline.it <<<.

>>> http://worldatlas.com <<<.

>>> http://www.33ff.com <<<.

These sites provide free graphics and I recommend a visit.

Among the downloaded files you will find the very important "ie-rereg.zip". Please unzip it and doubleclick the cmd file. We all know this problem: Internet Explorer is slow, crashes, does not work properly and there is no way to repair it, although you tried a lot of tools. "ie-rereg.cmd" does it ! It will amazingly clean and speed up your IE by reregestering all dlls. It works with all versions and OS, is completely harmless and does not change any settings. It is very recommendable to use this tool from time to time in order to keep your IE fast. So if you find Rosetta Stone working slow, just execute it. For further references: >>> http://iefaq.info/index.php?action=artikel...&artlang=de <<<.

Rosetta Stone will always check internet connection on starting. Rosetta Stone is ready when the green light appears. Please configurate your firewall.

8. The Rosetta Stone Project:

=====================

Rosetta Stone is intended to develop step by step into a universal translating tool. Thus I will go on searching the web and adding available services, languages and combinations. I appreciate any contribution to this project. Please inform me if you know any recommendable translation service in the net (single-language translation machines are welcome, too) or if you feel able to add a further interface language (just translate the "$Words[2]" line). You will be mentioned in the credits list. Thank you.

A new part of the project is the "Twin" Program "Unicode Keyboard". Unicode Keyboard is a text editor with full Unicode support. Step by step I will decode all available Unicode codes and present them in keyboards. You find a link to it next to the "Close" button. I decided to split this program from Rosetta Stone, because it has some differing aspects and indications. Native speakers are welcome to help me !

I strongly recommend downloading the entire "RosettaStone.exe" because I included some selfmade graphics and a more beautiful icon than the AutoIt default one. You will need the icon and the graphics for the "Rosetta Stone Button". I guarantee that the .exe does not contain malicious functions and is exactly the same as the .au3. If you have problems using the .exe (but don´t worry, they would not leave a malicious file online !), just execute it once in order to spread the included files and hence only use the au3.

peace on earth jennico

Please give me feedback !

Edited November 17, 2007 by jennico

[jennico]

Well okay,

i tried to past the source code, but it's too long.

So here are the downloads:

Please give me feedback !

jennico

Edit: There seems to be some kind of server error. if you want to download the "RosettaStone.exe", you have to do that by right clicking and opening in new window. Direct click doesn't always work. (problem only occurs with firefox, not with ie, it seems)

Please also download the twin program Unicode Keyboard v1.0

Rosetta Stone v4.0 is now zipped and contains au3 and exe. Comes with installer and directory sytem. Add some screenshots here.

RosettaStoneSetupv4.0.zip

Edited November 17, 2007 by jennico

[GEOSoft]

Hmmmmmmmm! Sounds good but with it being such a long post, did I miss the download links or did you forget to put them in.

Edit;

Never mind. You added it while I was replying.

Edited October 22, 2007 by GEOSoft

[jennico]

i always get stuck in problems while posting things here.

sometimes the code is too long, sometimes the text and there is an attachment limit of 1 mb, so i have to feed that all step by step...... sorry.

About the new version: soon after releasing the v2.0 i realized that the autoitteam added Unicode support to autoit !!!! That was just what i needed, maybe they did it just for my script !!!

So no more copying and pasting, Rosetta Stone can now handle all of the world's language characters within its scripting lines and strings. that's just enlightning for me !

thank you, gary and all the others, i have deleted lots of unsecure clicking and pasting lines, thank you so much !!!

i added 20 languages and three engines. but the more strange the languages are, the more unsatisfying is the result. i am still working on another three engines that will support more languages and better translations. When i will be finished with all these things some time i will try to combine the single engines in order to always get proper translations. well, i hope at least. That's the aim of the project.

i changed the source code completely in order to prepare it for more engines, so i don't have to change the syntax anymore. the code now is quite stable and systematical and will be able to integrate more languages than before.

so well, have fun with it, there are some new features, some changes and a little bit more beautiful interface.

j.

Edited October 22, 2007 by jennico

[GEOSoft]

i always get stuck in problems while posting things here.

sometimes the code is too long, sometimes the text and there is an attachment limit of 1 mb, so i have to feed that all step by step...... sorry.

About the new version: soon after releasing the v2.0 i realized that the autoitteam added Unicode support to autoit !!!! That was just what i needed, maybe they did it just for my script !!!

So no more copying and pasting, Rosetta Stone can now handle all of the world's language characters within its scripting lines and strings. that's just enlightning for me !

i added 20 languages and three engines. but the more strange the languages are, the more unsatisfying is the result. i am still working on another three engines that will support more languages and better translations. When i will be finished with all these things some time i will try to combine the single engines in order to always get proper translations. well, i hope at least. That's the aim of the project.

i changed the source code completely in order to prepare it for more engines, so i don't have to change the syntax anymore. the code now is quite stable and systematical and will be able to integrate more languages than before.

so well, have fun with it, there are some new features, some changes and a little bit more beautiful interface.

j.

The GUI is much better now. I like it.

Now for the bad part. You should warn people to place the Exe into a new folder before they run it. I had it on the desktop and guess what kind of mess I had to clean up.

[jennico]

Thank you,

I also like my gui with the flap and the flags.

I could imagine that all the little flaggies might decorate your desktop in quite a fancy way, no ? looks more sophisticated now !

for the others: do not execute any files on your desktop, they could mess it up !!!

[gseller]

Oh Yes, Very nice!! I do like the gui much better, ya could always use fileinstall and filedelete for compiling and send all the little flaggies to the temp folder and delete when exitiing.. LOL Love the new script jennico.. Thanks!

[GEOSoft]

You could also put all the flags into a sub-folder

@ScriptDir & "\Flags"

I really like the Latin translation. It could be used to translate the AutoIt help files into Latin.

[jennico]

well,

then you'd have a folder on your desktop.... not really an improvement..... ?

the Latin unfortunately is without grammar. no ancient Roman would understand you. i must find a better engine for some next version.

si tacuisses philosophus mansisses.

j.

[GEOSoft]

well,

then you'd have a folder on your desktop.... not really an improvement..... ?

the Latin unfortunately is without grammar. no ancient Roman would understand you. i must find a better engine for some next version.

si tacuisses philosophus mansisses.

j.

Easier to move/re-move a folder full of images than to clean up a desktop full of individual images. Also I think you could embed those images into your compiled script and not need them as separate items. You would probably have to convert them to bmp or ico format though.

[jennico]

this all is possible and i would do it, but in THIS forum here are two problems:

1. upload limit 1 mb per user, not per posting !

2. people here prefer the au3 code and mistrust exe files

i have been asking the autoit team to develop something like resource dll reading, so one could put all files together, but it seems to have no priority (we talked about that).

the fileinstall is not really satisfying, because it still spreads the files on the user's hdd.

j.

Edited October 23, 2007 by jennico

[gseller]

Hey, I am with you jennico. You made a really cool script, if we want to make these changes that is our porogative. I personally have no trouble making the changes to suite me. I have already ran into the one meg attatchment limit too.. lol I just host the files on my own websites. No biggy...

[jaenster]

nice but dont working

[jennico]

how not working ?

that's the first real complaint.

please tell me !

j.

Edited October 26, 2007 by jennico

[Achilles]

The .exe works good for me. I would recommend putting all the flag images and whatever else in the @TempDirectory, and possibly in their own folder.

Nice work on this! Looks very professional.

[jennico]

Hello jaenster !

please give me an idea why my script does not work. Maybe it could be the Dutch language ? Could you check my translation ?

Hello Piano_Man !

thank you. puedes chequear mi traducción español, por favor ? Mi español es agradable pero me gustaria apollo en eso. bueno, añadiré la Quecha también...

j.

[WeMartiansAreFriendly]

Ooh. this is very nice, I happend to overlook it.

[jennico]

Okay then,

Just released v 4.0.

i did not add new languages nor engines. i have been working hard on enabling national keyboards for every language.

furthermore i scripted an installer and a file system.

there is a twin program i wrote by extracting the keyboards from this program. you can download it here.

please put both programs together in the same directory so they share their files !

i hope you like it !

j.

Edited November 17, 2007 by jennico

[jennico2]

next features i am working on: grammar checker, spelling checker, and a bundle of new languages, engines, flags and keyboaeds.

Edited November 18, 2007 by jennico2

[therks]

Hey if you need some more space to store files I have a lot of extra room on my server. I'd be happy to lend you a private FTP. Would be like http://therks.com/~jennico or could be a different name if you'd prefer. Just send me a private message with a user/pass to setup, if you're interested.