Google Chrome Translate Plugin

Extension and plugin development for the Google Chrome web browser is finally taking off with the inclusion of the extension engine in the latest development versions of the Google browser. Chrome users had to start the browser with a command line parameter before if they wanted to enable extensions. It is now more comfortable to work with extensions. Even that comfortable that it beats the Firefox web browser. The main difference is the restart of the browser that is needed in Firefox but not in Google Chrome.

Bubble Translate is a translation plugin for the Google Chrome browser. It uses the Google Translate service to provide on-page translations of selected text. It is recommended to configure the plugin after its installation. A click on the T icon in the Chrome status bar will open the settings where the language of the user needs to be set (default is Afrikaans). Other options in that menu include changing the translation hotkey and the color scheme of the translated text.

The default hotkey to translate items on a website is Ctrl. All that it takes to translate part of a website is to press the Ctrl key and select the text that should be translated with the computer mouse. It takes a moment before the translated version of the text (translated into the language selected in the configuration of the extension) shows up in a bubble next to the selected text.

The extension is an early development stage. This could explain that it sometimes took more than one try to get the translation of a selected text in the browser. Bubble Translate for Google Chrome is available at its Google Code project website.

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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Wednesday October 14, 2009 -
Tags:bubble translate, google chrome, google chrome translate, google translate