tkbabel.tcl

Description

tkbabel.tcl is both useful and fun at the same time.  It simply adds a little user interface to the translation service at http://babel.altavista.com.  The bonus that this app adds is where the fun begins.  You can easily set up a pipeline of translations... from english to spanish to french to german and see just how progressively bad the translation gets.

Screen Shots

	The Main Window.

Usage

The app should be pretty self explainatory except for one thing.  When creating a translation pipeline, you need to list english as every other step.  For instance, to translate from English to Spanish to French to English the pipeline should say:

• "en es en fr en"

Command Line Args

tkbabel.tcl currently has no command line arguments.

Key Bindings

<Double-Escape>	Exit
<Escape>	Clear all
<F1>	Do translation

Requirements

• The tcl.prehiti.net libraries
• The nwidg.tcl library is used for simplified widget layout
• Tcl/Tk 8.0 or greater

Todo List
 

Bugs

General

• The language pipeline should automatically insert (maybe implicitly) English between two other languages so that users don't have to know that it is a required step between two non-English languages.
• AltaVista just changed the format of their translation engine... this version of tkbabel.tcl is the first to attempt to load the new format.
• babel.altavista.com now supports a few more translations... some do not require tkbabel.tcl to go through English and there is asymetrical support for Russian to English.  Some day tkbabel.tcl will support these translations.