Is in the Windows App Store Now!

If you like the app or you’re interested in it, please follow it on Twitter @translatelingo! I will be posting updates about it there as well, just a little shorter.

it’s a fast-loading four-tab app that multiplexes Deepl, Google, and Azure Translation Subscriptions. It’s built on the Bring Your Own Subscription (BYOS) model which allows YOU to be in control of your costs. You can get another Azure sub on the free track and translate 2M characters a month with it for free. The Google sub has a 10-dollar-a-month credit that allows up to 500000 characters translated a month for free. The Deepl free API allows for 500000 characters of translation each month as well.

You can get a chance at 50 free copies of the app that lasts 6 months using this link. http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=532540&mstoken=CVCY3-JQD9X-PKV27-2CFJT-MCTVZ

With the app, you can skip the Google Developer fees to translate ALL your Play Store entries for the 80-plus languages the app supports and if you have them localized in your app you can get it done yourself pretty quickly. Now, you can also translate your Apple storefronts as well!

Speaking of localizing your app, I develop my apps with Xamarin.Forms and use ResX Manager. It is a resource hog but is a very easy-to-use extension for Visual Studio. It handles the localization and resx files quite well for making your app support multiple languages.

Also, once you’ve localized the store entries for each store, the second tab of the app will translate your app updates release notes into 80 plus languages. For Google, it’s pretty easy, all you have to do is copy and paste from Notepad once it’s done and that’s it. But with Apple, it is always difficult and you have to update to Meta Data entry fields for each language.

[icon prefix=”fa-duotone” name=”laptop-code” class=”fa3x fa-spin”/] Here’s a quick view of the whole app in action for those that don’t like to read!

Default Console Settings for the Different Languages

You can manage your translations of the storefronts yourself from the developer portal instead of paying nearly 300 dollars to have google do it. This App uses Azure’s Cognitive Translation AI and Google Translate API to translate the text in YOUR default store sections. The App supports translations in over 80 languages and will be adding more translation engines later. It depends on the ease of use and user experience of setting up an account with a new translation service. Once set up, it’s just populating the fields in the store sections tab and then selecting the source language from the drop-down. Then you select the destination language and then tap the translate button. Once the entries are translated, tap, or click on them and paste them into the new storefront for that language. It doesn’t seem very easy, but you select Manage Translations Yourself in the developer console, select the language you want to configure, select that language from the interface of the Translate My Lingo App, and then click on the Translate button. It will auto-populate the three text fields with the translated text for you. You tap each one individually and then paste that text into the corresponding field in the developer console. Once you are done with that language, you move on to the next one and rinse and repeat until you get all the languages you want to be done, done!

As you can see from the image above, I have added new views to support the Apple App Store data entry points for the main listing and for updates! It works exactly like the Google view in that you input all your data in the appropriate fields and then Save it. Down below you will see your Character Count, this is important as some fields only allow a certain amount of characters in them. So be aware when translating to verbose languages like French you may go over the limit and have to reword certain data fields.

But once you are ready, pick YOUR source language and then the DESTINATION language, and then click the Translate button. The data fields will turn black and you will see the new language displayed. All you have to do is click each field and paste it into the Apple App Store entry field.

Making Changes

If you make changes to YOUR default storefront text, go back to the first tab of the Translate My Lingo App, make the update, and apply it. Then again, go back through each language’s store entry, retranslate with the updated text, and copy and paste the new text over again. No sweat! This also applies to the Apple App Store but you may have to push a new App Version in order to be able to do this. I do not believe that Apple lets you edit them without an App Update to prompt the ability to edit.

App Update Notes

If you have many translations and Play Store storefronts configured for different languages, you will notice that you need to enter update notes for each language when you do YOUR app updates. That is automated with my App. Just set your default update text, set your default language, and hit save. It will automatically generate a text file formatted correctly with all the translations already done. You must copy and paste it into the field provided on the developer console page for new version submissions. Depending on the number of current languages (I am adding more all the time as the providers keep adding more as well) and the size of your updated text, it can take a minute to translate and format the document for you, so be patient, and it’ll pop up, and you can take it from there. If it skips a few languages for some reason, it means that your patch note is throwing Google API for a loop! Try rewording your note and re-translating to see if you get all your languages populated. If it is really being difficult, make sure you have no #, %, or any other particular character that can be used in a URL since this is a REST-based API that all the engines use and Google is very sensitive.

And along with adding support for Apple’s App Store, comes Apple Updates as well. They do not work like Google Updates but more like a regular storefront update. There are only two fields to deal with and once set you just go from language to language translating and copying and pasting over to their appropriate store entry the What’s New and the Promotional Text fields.

App Settings

The app settings hold the specific coordinates for the Azure Cognitive Translation AI service, Google Translate API Key, and Free Deepl API Key. Specifically, you will need the Key, the region, and the endpoint to do any translation services from one language to another. Once entered, just hit save, and they are there until you clear them. You can go to https://portal.azure.com to set up a free Azure Subscription, and then you can add a Translation service utilizing the free tier that allows up to 2M characters translated per month. For Google Translation Services, you get 500,000 characters per month (based on a 10-dollar credit). You need an API key from here: https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/ look for Translation API and set up an API key, enter it into the settings entry field, and click Save. Also, now you can add Deepl as well! Just register for the free API version that gives you 500000 characters each month of translation. Just go to https://deepl.com.

As well as entering your translation engine keys I have also added counters, subscription limits, and roll-over dates to the view as well. It will automatically reset the counters at the start of a new month or whenever you open the app after the last save month. It will keep count of your characters as you translate, a loose count, except for Deepl which is taken from their API call and returns the exact amount of characters used. For now, you have to enter the subscription period starts and subscription max characters per period manually but once that is done the app takes over for you. I have added in the ability to add your subscriptions base character limit and the app keeps a running tally for you of character use. You can set the roll-over data to the first or whatever date is specific to your plan with the Date Picker. At that point, it will automatically roll over the character count and date after the first of the following month and each month after that. Make sure to click Save after entering your subscription start date and base character allotment to ensure they are there the next time you start the app!

Info or About

About shows you information about the App like version and, in the upper right corner, gives you a button to email support as well. I have done away with the QnA bot and added a link directly to these instructions to that you can use the translation widget on the upper right side of THIS PAGE to translate it into YOUR language and make it easier. The QnA bot was never multi-lingual, so I made that decision.

Using The App For The Windows Store

Yes, you can! You just repurpose the fields on the main tab and then translate them to whatever language you need. I used the app on my Google Store Entry, my Apple App Store Entry, and my Windows Store Entry for my apps. It’s easy to just reuse the fields for whatever entries the other stores have. Then it just clicks and pastes until you are done! Think outside the box when looking at the fields, whatever is in them can be translated into other languages so you can use that text for whatever is needed for your storefront.

Hopefully, one day soon I can add a view for the Windows Store but it has a LOT of data points to fill in and it would be a chore to work out. So I will be thinking about it for a bit and hopefully get some ideas on how to integrate it into the app!

John