New in Web Translate It: leaner interface

I just pushed a new version of Web Translate It. This new version include a couple improvements as well as a few bug fixes.

Redesigned action buttons on the translation interface

The action buttons on the translate page were only visible when hovering the string. While it was great for reviewing strings, several users reported it was a bit confusing. Besides, the comment button was lacking too much visibility.

So I redesigned these action buttons. The goal was for them to gain enough attention, while staying fairly invisible to afford a comfortable reviewing of the strings.

The buttons were a bit jammed in the upper right corner. I gave them some more padding to give them some more importance. I also made them bolder, while making them more greyer. The result is that the buttons are more noticeable while being less visible.

When hovering, the buttons gain some more contrast, making them more visible.

I think it is a good trade-off. I will tweak this up more in the upcoming releases, please let me know if you have any comments.

Leaner Web Translate It

493,29KB. That’s how much Web Translate It did weight before this release.

The big guy was the Javascript framework PrototypeJS with Scriptaculous, served via Google AJAX API. The Javascript framework is served non minified by Google and was totalling 345KB. Ouch!

318,77KB. That’s how much it weights now. That’s still quite a bit but it’s 200KB less already, without removing any feature.

How?

I switched the Prototype + Scriptaculous Javascript framework (345KB not minified) to the latest jQuery, which is served minified by Google: 68KB.

I had to rewrite all the Javascript front-end to make it work with jQuery but it worth it: everything is much simpler, and I killed a few bugs along the way. It is very likely you will notice some micro-improvements when using Web Translate It.