Last week we announced the launch of KantanSnippet™, a part of the KantanWidgets™ Suite of Productivity Apps. KantanWidgets allows KantanMT clients to integrate KantanMT technology within their own environments, including websites, Microsoft Office programs and supported browsers (Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox).
We interviewed the developer of KantanSnippet, Conall Malone to find out more about the features and benefits of KantanSnippet.
KantanMT: As a Developer, you work on different projects like KantanSnippet, could you give us a gist of what this new feature is all about?
Conall: With KantanSnippet, our clients can translate snippets or fragments of highlighted text on websites, without having to even leave the page. It is a web-based plug-in for your browser, and a very quick, effective and secure way of translating texts and documents. When you select the web text to be translated, its translation will appear in a pop-up box in the browser.
To translate with KantanSnippet, you do not need to upload files to the KantanMT platform. As long as you have at least one KantanMT engine already set up, you can effectively use the widget.
KantanMT: Can you tell us a bit more about setting up KantanSnippet?
Conall: Like for any other plug-in, the user first needs to download KantanSnippet for their browser. It currently works with Chrome, Firefox and Opera and will be supported on Edge later in the year.
You will of course need an API enabled KantanMT account. To set up the engines that will be using this tool you need to set the alias of that engine to KantanTranslate.
An alias is a group of KantanMT engines or profiles for the same domain that are grouped together. For example, if you have 10 profiles some of which relate medical domains and you want to group them by categories, you can group some of the profiles and give them the alias ‘medical’. Basically, profile aliases will simplify the user experience by cutting down on the time required to specify the use of a particular engine. When you use API you don’t have to specify the profile name, instead you can use the alias and language pair, e.g. medical/fr/en.
Once you have your API working, simply highlight the text you would like to translate and click on the KantanSnippet icon in your browser, a popup will automatically appear with the translated text.
KantanMT: Why did you create this tool?
Conall: The purpose of KantanSnippet is to provide users with an instant translation of a piece of text on a website within a fully safe and confidential environment. The user does not need to login to the KantanMT platform, they do not have to copy and paste text into different boxes. It’s all done within the browser itself.
Also, as Development Manager, Marek Mazur pointed out before, all widgets within our Suite of Productivity Apps are ideal for our security and productivity conscious clients. At KantanMT, we do not reuse or store the data. What this means is that you or people in your organisation can use KantanSnippet to get the gist of a fragment of text, without having to open a new window and opt for any popular instant translation tool, which are often less private or secure.
KantanMT: You mentioned our clients need to have translation engines on the KantanMT platform to use KantanSnippet. Does this mean that if our clients do not good quality engines, KantanSnippet would not work effectively? If so, what does this mean for our clients or how can they fix this?
Conall: Yes, I am afraid KantanSnippet wouldn’t work effectively if the engine quality is low. However, this can be remedied very easily by using KantanLibrary‘s bilingual stock training data to train the engine or they can even use one of our pre-built, KantanFleet engines.
Just to give our readers a quick idea of KantanFleet: They are a set of pre-built, domain specific Custom Machine Translation engines that allow clients to begin translating immediately, without the need to create an MT engine from scratch.
KantanMT: Can we use KantanSnippet on any website, and is it possible to copy and paste the information from elsewhere?
Conall: Yes, the KantanSnippet widget works on all websites and will translate any language that is available on KantanMT. There is a button in the footer of the translation popup that allows users to copy the translated text to the clipboard or the user can highlight the part of the translation they want to copy and press (CTRL+C) or right click and copy.
KantanMT: Can all our clients use this product right away?
Conall: Yes, any KantanMT user with an API enabled account will be able to use this extension right away.
KantanMT: What are some of the ideal scenarios where KantanSnippet can be used by our clients?
Conall: Let’s say if a client (or potential client) is a global organisation and worried about data security, KantanSnippet is a very effective way of ensuring data privacy. Confidential emails, reports, or other similar online documentation can be quickly translated by KantanSnippet. This extension means the user don’t have to download the text or copy and paste it into the KantanMT API, they simply have to highlight the text and they’ll have the translation on the same screen.
KantanMT: Is there anything else we should know about KantanMT?
All in all, KantanSnippet makes it quick and easy to translate any text on your website, without having to worry about security. We are constantly working on new features and adding updates to our existing features, so I would say, if any of our users have suggestions about KantanSnippet, we would be happy to hear from them.
KantanMT Note: The launch of KantanSnippet follows the announcement of KantanTranslate, which is also a part of the Suite of Productivity Apps from the KantanMT family.
About Conall Malone:
Conall is presently pursuing B.Sc. in Computer Applications and has a flair for developing new apps and designing websites. He works in the Software Development Department at KantanMT and reports to Marek Mazur, Software Development Manager.