Use an external translation service to translate content

When translating content items in Plone, you can connect to an external translation service to translate your content.

Using Google Cloud Translation API

The plone.app.multilingual product that turns Plone into a multilingual-content site supports Google Cloud Translation API, which allows the content editor to use its translations.

To use this service as a site administrator, you need to create a project in Google Cloud, enable the Cloud Translation API, and create an API key under the Credentials of the Google Cloud Console. You should enter this API key in the Multilingual Settings control panel in Plone.

After doing so, as a content editor, when you edit a translation of a given content page, an icon will display next to the original content. When you click this icon, it invokes the Google Cloud Translation API, and the translation obtained through the service will be entered automatically in the corresponding field.

Note

The usage of Google Cloud Translation API may create extra cost for the site administrator. See Cloud Translation pricing for details.

Using other translation services

If you want to use another service beside Google Cloud Translation API, you will need to override the view that calls Google Cloud Translation API.

To do so, plone.app.multilingual registers a view called gtranslation_service. Its code is in plone.app.multilingual.brwoser.translate.gtranslation_service_dexterity. This view gets three parameters:

context_uid

The UID of the object to be translated.

field

The name of the field of the object that needs to be translated. This view's job is to extract the value of that field from the object.

lang_source

The source language code.

The first part of the view—that which gets the object and the field content to be translated—can be copied from the original code. You need to write only the call to the translation service. The required code would be something like the following example:

class TranslateUsingMyService(BrowserView):
    def __call__(self):
        if self.request.method != "POST" and not (
            "field" in self.request.form.keys()
            and "lang_source" in self.request.form.keys()
        ):
            return _("Need a field")
        else:
            manager = ITranslationManager(self.context)
            context_uid = self.request.form.get("context_uid", None)
            if context_uid is None:
                # try with context if no translation uid is present
                manager = ITranslationManager(self.context)
            else:
                catalog = getToolByName(self.context, "portal_catalog")
                brains = catalog(UID=context_uid)
                if len(brains):
                    context = brains[0].getObject()
                    manager = ITranslationManager(context)
                else:
                    manager = ITranslationManager(self.context)

            registry = getUtility(IRegistry)
            settings = registry.forInterface(
                IMultiLanguageExtraOptionsSchema, prefix="plone"
            )
            lang_target = ILanguage(self.context).get_language()
            lang_source = self.request.form["lang_source"]
            orig_object = manager.get_translation(lang_source)
            field = self.request.form["field"].split(".")[-1]
            if hasattr(orig_object, field):
                question = getattr(orig_object, field, "")
                if hasattr(question, "raw"):
                    question = question.raw
            else:
                return _("Invalid field")

            # And here do the call to the external translation service
            return call_to_my_service(question, lang_target, lang_source)

Note

Due to the way that the Google Translate integration is built in plone.app.multilingual, you will need to enter something in the Google Translate API Key field in the Multilingual Settings control panel of your site. It doesn't need to be a valid Google Translate API Key; it can be a random string.