New Translation Widget

Dear Friend,

Today I'm going to share with you yet another useful tool, the Translation Widget. This widget is very up-to-date with the number of available languages, according to the Google Translate Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

This tool follows the list and code from the Google's translation page. Since we bloggers know what language we are in, there is no need for the source language. The neat thing about this widget is that it does not use any JavaScript code, yet it translates any post (not just your homepage) you are viewing to the target language, using the powerful expression syntax expr:value='data:blog.url'.

You can see it being installed on my blog. I am very hopeful that my blog will be even more popular to new non-english speaking visitors. I hope your blog will have some more traffic too, after installing this widget.

Again, to install this widget, all I ask from you is to keep the "Widget by Hoctro" text, so others can go to the source and install this widget on their blogs.

Add the code below to the widget list, from the Layout->HTML short form, following the instructions from this article Hacking Technique: How To Modify and add Widget to the Template, in particular section B.4.

<b:widget id='HTML200' locked='false' title='Translate to your Language' type='HTML'>
<b:includable id='main'>
<!-- Translation Widget by Hoctro - 10/2008 - This note must not be deleted -->
<!-- only display title if it's non-empty -->
<b:if cond='data:title != ""'>
<h2 class='title'><data:title/></h2>
</b:if>
<div class='widget-content'>
<form action='http://translate.google.com/translate_c?'>
<table id='webtb'>
<tr><td> <select name='tl' style='width: 8em;'>
<option value='ar'>Arabic</option>
<option value='bg'>Bulgarian</option>
<option value='ca'>Catalan</option>
<option value='zh-cn'>Chinese (Simplified)</option>
<option value='zh-tw'>Chinese (Traditional)</option>
<option value='hr'>Croatian</option>
<option value='cs'>Czech</option>
<option value='da'>Danish</option>
<option value='nl'>Dutch</option>
<option value='en'>English</option>
<option value='tl'>Filipino</option>
<option value='fi'>Finnish</option>
<option value='fr'>French</option>
<option value='de'>German</option>
<option value='el'>Greek</option>
<option value='iw'>Hebrew</option>
<option value='hi'>Hindi</option>
<option value='id'>Indonesian</option>
<option value='it'>Italian</option>
<option value='ja'>Japanese</option>
<option value='ko'>Korean</option>
<option value='lv'>Latvian</option>
<option value='lt'>Lithuanian</option>
<option value='no'>Norwegian</option>
<option value='pl'>Polish</option>
<option value='pt'>Portuguese</option>
<option value='ro'>Romanian</option>
<option value='ru'>Russian</option>
<option value='sr'>Serbian</option>
<option value='sk'>Slovak</option>
<option value='sl'>Slovenian</option>
<option value='es'>Spanish</option>
<option value='sv'>Swedish</option>
<option value='uk'>Ukrainian</option>
<option selected='vi' value='vi'>Vietnamese</option>
</select>
<input expr:value='data:blog.url' id='url' name='u' type='hidden'/>
<input name='sl' type='hidden' value='en'/>
<input name='hl' type='hidden' value='en'/>
<input name='ie' type='hidden' value='UTF-8'/>
<input style='width: auto;' type='submit' value='Go'/>
</td></tr></table></form>
<h6>Widget by <u><a href='http://hoctro.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-translation-widget.html'>Hoctro</a></u></h6>
</div>
<b:include name='quickedit'/>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>

This line below contains the source language. Since I'm writing this blog in English, my source initial is en. You must change to your source language initial from the the widget code above.

<input name='sl' type='hidden' value='en'/>

This line below contains the preferred target language. Since I am a "constructive" lazy kind of guy, my preferred target language is Vietnamese vi. You must change this to your preferred target language, such as French ('fr').

<option selected='vi' value='vi'>Vietnamese</option>

Also, change the word "Go" to your language:

<input style='width: auto;' type='submit' value='Go'/>

One last thing. If you don't want part of your text to be translated, add the class='notranslate' to the tag around it, such as this example below:

<span class='notranslate'>This text won't be translated.</span>

Until next time.

Hoctro

10/14/08