Today we are introducing a new feature for all projects. We have actually been beta-testing this feature since a few months now and it is now ready. We call it Reporting.

Reporting is a new way to see at a glance the whole translation work of your translation team in a specific time frame. This is useful if you have a team of translators to pay, for instance.

You will find this new feature under the Language & Stats tab on the new Reporting sub-tab.

In order to use it, start by selecting a time frame (for instance we want to see all the translations made on the WebTranslateIt project between January 1st to March 8th).

It is also possible to filter by a specific language, and change the unit of count used for billing (segments, words or characters).

Finally, by clicking on “View Details” you get to see exactly the changes made by the translator. This is useful if you want to verify the translation work that was done.

But that’s not it! We made Reporting global and work across projects. On your dashboard you will notice a new “Reporting” tab.

This reporting feature works the same way the project reporting does, except it runs on several projects at the same time.

On that page you will see a report of translations made across the projects, grouped by translators, detailing the changes made by that translator by project. This is useful if translate several projects at the same time.

I hope you will find the new Reporting feature useful. You will find more information about Reporting in the documentation. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

We released a new feature for people sharing large teams across projects: the ability to download and upload teams.

In any projects, under the “Users” tab, managers will now find a new “Import and Export” sub-tab.

On that page you are able to download a .csv file of the whole team (project members and invitees, or either of them). The spreadsheet file you download lists all the useful information you need to contact or invite a member of your project to another project.

That .csv file can be edited, names can be added or removed, and you can upload that .csv file to another project to copy the whole team to another project.

Project members will be automatically invited to the new projects. Invitees will get a new invitation to the new project. Also, as a security measure it isn’t possible add a person as a member if she isn’t a collaborator to your organization already. You basically can’t make an unknown person a member out of the blue.

I hope you will find this new feature useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

Here are a few new features we released over the last few months on WebTranslateIt.

1. Kill a batch operation

Have you ever launched a batch operation and realized that maybe you shouldn’t have? You can now cancel a batch operation at any time from the batch operation controller. Just click on the “Abort batch operation” link.

2. WebHook Log

We know it’s sometimes hard to test your WebHooks endpoint, so we started logging WebHooks calls, as well as the response code returned. You can view all this information in the project settings, under “WebHooks”.

3. Atom feed improvements

We cleaned the Atom feed of the Activity feed. You will find it useful if you use a Atom feed reader which is a bit picky.

4. Webhooks now include a text field

The text field is a mandatory for Slack, so WebTranslateIt Webhooks can now be used to notify Slack of new translations.

5. Generate file with their hidden translations

By default WebTranslateIt generates files by replacing the hidden segments by the source text. There is now an option in the project settings so you can change this behavior and get files using the hidden translation instead.

6. Performance improvements on Batch Operations

We optimized the code of our Batch Operations so they should now run faster.

7. Improvements to the API

String API

• We added the ability to do regex search for a segment using the String List endpoint (using the regex and ignore_case parameters.
• We also added the ability to see file attachments on the String List and String Show endpoints.

File API

We added the ability to rename target files if you rename a Master file from the File Update endpoint (by using the rename_others parameter).

Today we released a new feature in WebTranslateIt’s TermBase: you can now use #hastags in the terms description.

It is very easy to use: type any amount of hashtags in a term’s description.

Save the description, now the hashtag is clickable, and lets you search by hashtags.

You can use these hashtags to categorize terms by keywords.

I hope you will find this improvement useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

We released a new version of the web_translate_it gem, the open-source synchronization tool for Web Translate It.

New Features

There have been several releases since the last release announcement (for web_translate_it 2.2.1) on the blog.

Here’s what is new since that version from the changelog

Version 2.4.0 / 2015-08-10

• Now returns correct exit codes. 0 if command successful, 1 if any error has occurred.
• Limit the amount of retries to 3 on timeout.

Version 2.3.4 / 2014-05-23

• Add --debug option to turn on debug output.

Version 2.3.3 / 2014-05-22

• Use longer timeout.

Version 2.3.1 / 2014-05-07

• The .wti configuration file is now parsed by ERB so the API token can be stored in an environment variable instead of in the .wti file. Fixes issue #118

Version 2.3.0 / 2014-04-18

• Deprecate wti push --all. This command was replaced by wti push --target, which is slightly different since it only pushes target locales. The --all option was deprecated because pushing all source and target files at the same time can cause synchronization issues under some circumstances.
• Add new wti push --target command to push target files only.
• Read more about these changes the blog: https://webtranslateit.com/en/blog/posts/264-Updates-to-synching-behaviour

Version 2.2.2 / 2014-03-13

• Fix deprecation warning. #112

---

Install or Upgrade

To install web_translate_it, please refer to the gem documentation.

To upgrade web_translate_it to its latest version, type in a terminal: gem install web_translate_it.

Today we just released an update to WebTranslateIt so it now serves so-called request IDs.

By default the servers will serve a unique x-request-id HTTP header, but you can also pass a x-request-id header to your request and the servers will now respond with he same x-request-id in the response headers.

These request headers are an excellent way to “tag” requests and make sure you are served the right content.

I hope you will find this feature useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

Today we released a new version of our TermBase. It includes new features, bug fixes and it is also easier to use.

Change the source language

One of the most requested feature about the TermBase was the ability to change the source language, just like it is possible to do on the Translation Interface.

This required us to completely change the way the TermBase was architected and then migrate all the TermBases to the new architecture and this is now done: the TermBase now works like on the translation interface.

You can now switch the source language to another language. This is useful if you want to translate your list of terms from another language than your source language.

A better user interface

We improved the user interface to make it easier to use. For instance it is easier to differentiate accepted words from suggestions. Accepted words are displayed using a larger text, while suggestions are in smaller text with a dotted underline.

Clicking on a suggestion or an accepted translation brings this modal window.

On this window you can review the term translation details, review who translated it and when, and vote the translation up or down. Translations with a note over 1 are accepted translations and these can are downgraded to suggestions if their note it drops under 1.

Many, many more features

A few of the new TermBase features include :

• the ability to edit a translation or suggestion,
• depending on your permissions, the ability to delete a translation or suggestion (it was previously only possible to vote down a translation),
• the ability for each translation or suggestion to have their own part of speech and description,
• the ability to attach a file to a translation (it was previously only possible to attach a file to a term).

If you wish to read more about WebTranslateIt’s TermBase you will find more information about it in our documentation.

I hope you will find these improvements useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

We released an update to WebTranslateIt which brings the ability to control how hidden segments will be exported in your language files.

What are hidden segments

A hidden segment is a segment that was hidden by a manager. Hidden segments are not visible by translators. Only managers can hide segments by clicking on the options button and then click “Hide segment”. Hiding segments is useful for hiding from translators segments that contain code or that shouldn’t be modified.

What’s new

By default hidden segments are exported using the source text in the generated file. However, even though they are hidden their translations can be edited from the web interface.

Starting today you can now generate language files with hidden segments using the existing translation. You can change this behavior in the project settings under “Advanced Settings” » “Hidden Segments”.

I hope you will find this update useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

We just added two new features to WebTranslateIt: diffs and reverts.

Diffs

Diffs make it easier for translators to see what changed in a translation.

When translating a segment translators will now see a diff of the source text with the source text’s previous version.

We also added diffs in the string history, too. Clicking on any translation version in the history will reveal the difference between this version and the previous translation.

Clicking on the translation again will hide the diff and let you see the text.

Reverts

We also added the ability to quickly revert to a previous translation version. You can do it on the history page of a segment by clicking on the “revert” link.

We hope you will find this new feature useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

We pushed a few new features and improvements to WebTranslateIt this month. Here are 5 of them we hope you will like.

1. Fine-grained multilingual batch operations

This feature was requested many times and here it is: you can now run a batch operation and select exactly to which languages the changes will apply.

The interface will remember which languages were chosen on your last multilingual batch operation so you won’t have to make the same selection twice.

2. New batch operation: move to another file

Ever had to move a bunch of segments from one file to another? Use our new “Move to file” batch operation!

3. Only export proofread segments

We added this feature to adapt WebTranslateIt to most workflows. In some companies, only proofread translations can go live on production. However until today WebTranslateIt could only generate language files containing all of your translations (unfinished and proofread translations).

You will find a new option in your project settings to make the system generate language files containing only proofread segments. It means that untranslated or unproofread segments won’t be included in your language file.

You will find this new option in your project settings, under “Advanced Settings”.

4. Welcome message and automatically approved invitations

If your projects are open and if you receive many requests to translate your projects you might find this feature useful.

First, we added the ability to setup a welcome message to the invitees. It means that when the translator’s request is accepted, she will receive an e-mail containing a welcome message of your choosing. You can use this space to give instructions or advices to the translator, or just say hello.

We also added the ability to automatically approve requested invitations. It means that all new invitation requests from translators will be immediately and automatically accepted (and the welcome message automatically sent if set up) unless the invitation request is sent in a language that you don’t support yet, in which case you will have to manually accept or refuse it.

You will find these 2 new options in your project settings, under “Access Control”.

5. New option: fixed-width fonts

We added a new option to the user preferences page. You can now choose to use fixed-width fonts on the translation interface text areas.

Fixed-width fonts are sometimes useful to check for spacing or in some languages.

Here’s an example of the translation interface running with default, “pretty” fonts:

And here it is running fixed-width fonts:

I hope you will find these improvements useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

Following up on our last post 6 new features to WebTranslateIt, here are 4 new features to WebTranslateIt’s API.

CORS support

WebTranslateIt now supports CORS: Cross Origin Resource Sharing requests. It enables the API to be requested from another domain.

New Endpoint: push by file path

The File API has a new endpoint to push a file by its path instead of pushing it by its ID. It’s useful to push a file without knowing it’s ID.

You can now use:

/api/projects/:project_token/files/...?file_path=path/to/file.po [PUT]

Instead of:

/api/projects/:project_token/files/:master_project_file_id/locales/:locale_code [PUT]

For more information please check the documentation on the File API.

Access the File Show API using JSONP

You can also now access the File Show endpoint using JSONP parameters by adding ?callback=callbackName to the URL if the file requested is a JSON file. More information can be found on the File Show API endpoint documentation.

Organization API

We now have a brand new Organization API endpoint. For now it lets your retrieve all your projects (including their API tokens) and your collaborators. You will find your Organization API token in your organization settings.

I hope you will find these improvements on the API useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

We pushed quite a few new features and improvements to WebTranslateIt lately. Here are 6 new ones we hope you will like.

1. Search for a collaborator

It was hard to find someone if you had many collaborators on your organization. The collaborators page of your organization now lets you search people by name or e-mail address.

2. Faster People page and new Invitations Page

We improved the People page to make it faster and moved the invitations to a proper Invitations page.

The Invitations page lets you filter invitations by statuses: pending (waiting for the person to accept the invitation) or requested (waiting for you to accept the invitation proposal).

3. Improvements to the Home page

We improved the home page listing your projects and made it searchable. Also, you can now filter the list of projects by name of by activeness.

4. Global keyboard shortcut for search

With so many new search boxes we thought it would be a great idea to make the key s a global keyboard shortcut for search. Hitting the s key will now focus the cursor on the search box on the new home page, the Translation Interface, on the File manager, on the collaborators page and basically any search box that you can find on the site.

5. Have many labels?

We improved the labels feature for people using that feature extensively. The label list is now truncated and you can toggle the full list of labels by clicking on the ... button.

We also improved the interface to add new labels if you have many labels on your project.

6. Improvements under the hood, too

Don’t you feel the website snappier since a couple of weeks? We upgraded ruby, the programming language that powers WebTranslateIt.

We also upgraded our server. The new server is now equipped with 2 eight-core processors, 64GB of RAM and 4 super-fast SSD drives mounted as a RAID10 array.

I hope you will find these improvements useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

You can now translate PHP files for the Laravel framework with WebTranslateIt.

The Laravel framework indeed supports nested arrays in translation files, so you can have things like:

<?php
# Some copyright comments
return array(
    'welcome' => 'Welcome to our application',
    'nested' => array(
        'key' => 'value',
        'nested' => array(
            'key' => 'value',
            'key2' => 'value2',
        ),
    ),
);

You can find more information about this new file format in the documentation.

Refinements to the other PHP handlers

Our other PHP handlers (the PHP Array handler and PHP Define handlers have been updated to make the PHP closing tag (?>) optional. If you don’t include it in your files on import WebTranslateIt will generate translation files without the closing tag on export.

I hope you will find these improvements useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

We pushed an update to the way synching works via the API today. The gist is that it is no longer possible to push all your master and target files at the same time by running the wti push --all command for instance.

The wti push --all command is unreliable and can cause problems synching your files. Let’s consider the following project, whose source language is English and which is translated into 3 languages. It contains these files:

» en.yml (master)
»» de.yml
»» fr.yml
»» ru.yml

If the user runs wti push --all it will push all these files to WebTranslateIt at the same time.

On WebTranslateIt’s side files are imported by background workers and we run many background works at the same time, so WebTranslateIt will import these files at the same time depending on the server load. So en.yml, de.yml, fr.yml and ru.yml could be imported at the same time.

Importing the master file en.yml re-generates all its target files in order to add or remove segments that were added or removed in the master file. Since the target files could be importing at the exact same time this command effectively imports a file that is being updated at the same time. This causes issues such as target files not being properly imported.

That’s why we now force users to push master files and target files separately to prevent any importing issues.

WebTranslateIt client updated to 2.3.0

In order to reflect this change we also released an update to the web_translate_it client which deprecates the wti push --all command. We added a new command to replace it: wti push --target which will push all target files only.

To install web_translate_it, please refer to the gem documentation.

To upgrade web_translate_it to its latest version, type in a terminal: gem install web_translate_it.

---

If you were using the command wti push --all extensively on your project this command will no longer work. We broke it down into 2 commands:

1. wti push to push your master files,
2. wti push --target to push eventual changes of your target files.

My thanks to the awesome folks at LinguaLeo for reporting this issue

We pushed quite a few new features to WebTranslateIt lately. Here are 6 new ones.

1. Easily insert typographic characters

We updated our translation text highlighter and it now allows copy and pasting all kinds of typographic characters (ellipsis, quotes, currently symbols) by just clicking on the character on the source text.

These characters are difficult to type for translators, so this should make it much easier.

2. View statistics in other units

The Language & Stats tab got more useful, too. You can now choose to view the list of segments in other units too: segments, words and characters.

3. Easily e-mail your people

On the Team page managers will now find a drop-down menu to send an e-mail to some of your users: all managers, all translation teams or translation teams with or without proofreading rights.

4. Close and resolve discussions

After a while it sometimes happens that comments on a discussion are not that useful or relevant. Sometimes a discussion is about an advice or an issue and future comments are “Thanks!” or “Me too!” comments. Sometimes it would be useful to lock the discussion to prevent these comments but still keep the discussion open because it is informative and useful. You can now do so by closing the discussion.

Other times the discussion isn’t relevant anymore. For instance it can refer to a typo which has since been fixed. You can then archive the discussion.

Archived discussions are not deleted but can be found under “deleted discussions”, a new resource category under deleted resources.

5. Empty deleted resources

Deleted resources such as files, locales, segments and discussions are actually kept for a little while on our servers and are recoverable in your project settings in case a user deleted something by mistake.

It is now possible to empty and delete forever these deleted resources.

6. Tweet buttons

Are you running an open project and crowdsourcing its translation? We’ve added Tweet buttons to the Top Translators page, so it is easier than ever to spread that translation spree.

We’ve been improving our support for the excellent i18n javascript library i18next recently.

WebTranslateIt can now handle i18next’s plural forms:

{
  "ar": {
    "translation": {
      "key": "singular",
      "key_plural_0": "zero",
      "key_plural_2": "two",
      "key_plural_3": "few",
      "key_plural_11": "many",
      "key_plural_100": "plural"
    }
  }
}

Also, i18next’s variable placeholders should now be highlighted and their presence validated in the translation interface.

{
  "fr": {
    "ns.1": {
      "pluralTest": "singular",
      "pluralTest_plural": "plural",
      "pluralTestWithCount": "__count__item",
      "pluralTestWithCount_plural": "__count__items"
    }
  }
}

You can find more information about WebTranslateIt’s support for i18next JSON files in our documentation.

Did it ever happen to run a batch operation and immediately realizing that it wasn’t running on the correct subset and wishing you could undo the damage on your project?

We added a new feature that complements batch operations: you can now revert batch operations.

You will find this new feature on the page listing the changes made by the batch operation shortly after running a batch operation.

This button will be visible to managers if the batch operation was a batch operation running on translations (that is, an operation which is one of proofread, unproofread, pretranslate, flag as to verify, translate complete matches, copy text from source or remove translation) and if it was run less than 5 hours ago. We think reverting older batch operations than that could cause problems on your project if other people were working on it at the same time.

We hope you will find this feature useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

We know that a lot of people add new segments to their files and projects using our web interface, so we polished and improved the interface to create new segments over these last few months.

Some of these improvements are massive new features, others are tiny details, but everything we made should make you work a lot more easier, faster and less error prone.

Autocomplete

The biggest improvement to this interface is auto-complete. When typing the key name of a new segment you will get key name suggestions based on the segments key names which are already in your file.

For instance, typing the letter d will bring all the root key of the segments having a key name starting by a “d”.

You can then choose the key among the results. Select the key that fits or else keep typing to create something new if what you are looking for wasn’t listed.

The suggestion system works great for segments from hierarchized files such as YAML or JSON files. Typing the separating dot character will list the children segments of the root chosen earlier.

You can then choose the suggestion that fits best or type your own new segment.

It’s a great way to add segments, as it was too easy to makes mistakes in segment names before (by typing something like dzatetime.distance_in_words instead of datetime.distance_in_words.

Impossible keys

What’s even better with this new feature is that it prevents the user from creating segments with impossible keys.

What are impossible keys? Impossible keys are keys that are impossible to output in a tree-base file. For instance, if we had this segment hierarchy in a file:

en:
  datetime:
    distance_in_words:
      half_a_minute: "Half a minute"

Then we couldn’t possibly add a child key to the segment datetime.distance_in_words.half_a_minute, because that segment already is the last leaf of the tree. Therefore datetime.distance_in_words.half_a_minute.now is an impossible key within that file, unless you remove the segment datetime.distance_in_words.half_a_minute.

WebTranslateIt will now let you know when you try to add an impossible key. You will get an error when you try to add this kind of key via the API too.

Improvements to mass-adding segments

When adding 10 new segments to the same file, isn’t it annoying to select 10 time in which file the segment should be added?

No longer. First, if the translation interface is filtered by file, then WebTranslateIt will automatically select the currently selected file on new segment form.

If the translation interface isn’t filtered by file, then WebTranslateIt remembers to which file you last added your segment and automatically selects it. This way, you don’t need to always choose your file when added new segments en masse.

It’s a tiny improvement but we think it will be immensely useful.

We hope you will find these improvements useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

We just released a new version of the web_translate_it gem, the open-source synchronization tool for Web Translate It.

New Features

This new version adds one new feature. The configuration file can now include a needed_locales option. Contrary to the other option ignore_locales, needed_locales is an array containing all the locales you want to sync with WebTranslateIt.

Here’s an example of .wti configuration file using needed_locales:

# The Project API Token from Web Translate It
api_key: SECRET

# Optional: locales not to sync with Web Translate It.
# Takes a string, a symbol, or an array of string or symbol.
# More information here: https://github.com/AtelierConvivialite/webtranslateit/wiki
# ignore_locales: :en

# Or if you prefer a list of locales to sync with WebTranslateIt:
needed_locales: [en, fr, it]

# Optional
# before_pull: "echo 'some unix command'"   # Command executed before pulling files
# after_pull:  "touch tmp/restart.txt"      # Command executed after pulling files
#
# before_push: "echo 'some unix command'"   # Command executed before pushing files
# after_push:  "touch tmp/restart.txt"      # Command executed after pushing files

We also upgraded one library dependency in this version.

---

Install or Upgrade

To install web_translate_it, please refer to the gem documentation.

To upgrade web_translate_it to its latest version, type in a terminal: gem install web_translate_it.

We released a lot of new small and larger features to WebTranslateIt during these last few months. We’ll introduce you 9 of them.

1. Attach files to terms

We added the ability to attach a file (a screenshot or a document) to a term. It’s useful to show to translators what a “Dashboard” is by showing them a screenshot for instance.

2. Sort segments alphabetically

By default, your segments are sorted by context but you can now also sort your segments by key name.

3. Settings tab

Where are the settings? The settings button which lets you configure your project or your organization is now easier to find in the tabs.

4. New workflow for discussions

We optimized the workflow for navigating between discussions. When you click to a discussion from the discussion dashboard, you now get a link heading you back directly to the discussions dashboard page.

The topmost back link also takes you back to the discussion dashboard page too, instead of going back to the translation interface.

5. Confirmation message on discussions

When a translator clicks to notify everyone in a project WebTranslateIt now asks the translator if he really wants to send an notification e-mail to everyone. This is a reminder that writing a comment sends an e-mail notification and the less the better and it should help discussions to be better targeted to people.

6. Super Proofreaders (he’s no super-hero)

We’ve added more flexibility to the proofreader role in WebTranslateIt. On top of being a proofreader, you can be “super proofreader”.

Super proofreaders are proofreaders who can also proofread their own translations. Proofreaders can only proofread other people’s translations. By default, a new translator invited with be super-proofreader, and all proofreaders on WebTranslateIt have been promoted as super-proofreaders.

Super proofreader can be recognized by a different badge than proofreader’s.

We also changed the behavior of “to verify” translations. As you probably know, translations flagged as to verify are translations for which the source translation was changed, so they probably need to be changed a little bit and re-verified.

Before this update clicking on the proofread icon was flagging the icon as “proofread”, which makes sense, but it was forcing the proofreaders to work these to verify segments. What if you’d like your translators without proofreading rights to handle these segments?

The new behavior is that clicking on the proofread icon flags the segment as unproofread, and clicking again on this icon flags the segment as proofread, so now translators without proofreading rights can handle these segments as well.

7. Improvements to invitations

A lot of people reversed the name and e-mail fields when inviting a new user and were confused. We just added an validation which lets you know more clearly what is wrong in the form.

And here’s a cool one: if you paste an e-mail address like Édouard Brière <edouard@webtranslateit.com> to the e-mail folder it will extract the name and e-mail address and automatically place the e-mail address and name in the correct fields.

8. Improvement to adding new segments

WebTranslateIt now lets you know if you try to add an impossible key. This feature only works when adding segments to a tree-based file (like YAML or JSON files)

As an example, let’s consider this YAML file:

en:
  js:
    discussions
      created: "Discussion created"
      failed: "Failed to create a discussion"

js.discussions.created and js.discussions.failed are leaves in the YAML tree. They are the last elements in the tree, so it isn’t possible to nest a segment named js.discussions.created.ok under them.

In order to add the segment js.discussions.created.ok you either have to remove the js.discussions.created segment or rename js.discussions.created.ok to something else.

WebTranslateIt now knows about these rules and won’t let you create these segments from the web interface or the API, because they aren’t possible to export in a file, which can lead to hours of debugging on your side.

9. Deleting your organization now requires the owner’s password

We improved the security a bit and now deleting your organization requires you type your password.

I hope you will appreciate these improvements. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.