Hi.
Just to announce my software here BBTran - Universal translator software

OTA Links:
BBTran 1.2 (4.2+) OTA
BBTran 1.2 (4.1) OTA

in v1.1 added new Settings Screen to adjust connection settings.

in v1.2:
* refined Settings Screen .
* Application now hides bu default
* fixed communication bug
+ timeout setting added


It's a universal translation tool that provides easy access to various online translation & dictionary service.

For now I've implemented Google and SYSTRAN but will add more soon.
Tool should support new services onfly without update but in any case this is a first version but if needed it has autoupdate check so you'll not miss an update

Waiting for your feedback.

Sergey.

**moved to Aftermarket Software section**

Thank you, and welcome to the BBForums. Feel free to check back in this thread should any users have questions about your application.

JSanders, thanks for pointing me to the right section. I'm newbie here ;)

Very cool! It's a little bit... purple... for me (haha) but I like it. Interestingly, the word 'hello' was not found in SYSTRAN Dictionary for Spanish, but was found via Text mode. Strange, but I guess that is SYSTRAN's problem.

Sadly, if you don't have the right fonts installed you can't see the proper translation for some languages (i.e. you have a Western Europe language BlackBerry, and want to translate to Japanese). Not your fault of course, just one of those things I was hoping would magically work. Too bad it's hard to get fonts installed like that for us...

Here is a JAD file for those of us who are not on Windows - download the ZIP file from the website and unzip it, then unzip (yes, again) the BBTran_4_3.cod file inside to get BBTran.cod and BBTran-1.cod; place this JAD file, BBTran.cod and BBTran-1.cod onto your media card (drag & drop) then use the Media -> Explore tool on your BB to click the JAD file and install.

BBTran.jad

Hey,
thanks for the jad file. I surely will add OTA installation on the site.
Had no time yesterday to turn all that autodetection of platform.

purple ... yes it's a bit purple for my wife I wanted to create this tool without any special skinning so that it can run well using installed theme on the device but it looked so insipid for her... I like it now, but I'm open for suggestions on this topic

Yes, SYSTRAN really has no "Hello" in their shame on it. Fortunately google has hello in it's dict, that's why I creates this tool, just to be able to refer different services to be sure.


Oh, this is not an issue, I tested it using arabic language. The only thing you need is to add languages you want to support to your Blackberry using Desлещз Manager -> Application Loader. I added arabic lang and it is supported well. I can translate from and to and also it does RTL text well!
Without special languages installed you cannot see or type using them.
[/quote]

Thanks for your interest. I'm going to improve it more and more. Just will be good to have a feedback on BBTran's fails or things that are missed now ;)

Sergey.

Regarding feedback, just to help with ideas - here are two webpages I use that maybe will give you ideas on features and new services:

http://translation.langenberg.com/
http://www.fa_ganfinder.com/translate/

They both have many languages that are kind of cool, the second one has a lot of them...

(note: in the above URL remove the _ character, this website is mistakenly thinking it's a swear word and putting *** charcters)

So this has a Spanish version? I have new neighbors. They're real nice but they don't know any English. So this could be helpful if I need to communicate with them.

Wow,
thanks for that urls,
I'm going to add all that services and also a Lingvo. It is a good russian translator.

Also I'll do some investigation of a "suggest" mode when you do not know an exact word spelling or language. Looks like some services support it.

It utilizes all the languages available by the services (think like a unit converter - you pick the 'from' and 'to'), which include Spanish amongst many others.

If you don't know any Spanish, just be careful - many online translation services sort of get it right, but they sort of get it wrong at the same time. You have to word your English very clearly to be translated; avoid slang, conjunctions, and more advanced patterns of speech - think simple and direct without ambiguous terms and it will translate better with these services.

Try and translate "cowbell" from English to Spanish - 2/3rds of online translation dictionaries will fail. Now translate "cencerro" to English, and 100% of them spit back "cowbell" correctly.

App is not localized yet but surely will.
But is has very simple UI so I believe they can easily use it.
It does support Spanish to English for google and for SYSRAN:
Spanish <-> French
Spanish <-> English
Spanish <->Italian
Spanish <-> Portuguese

Ok that's it.
Thanks to rivviepop for the links again.
I added a new service provider: FreeTranslation.com
Going to add more.

Btw, most online services consume SYSTRAN as basis so there is sense to support them. Like altavista babelfish. At least until url translation will arrear in BBTran.

One word: AWESOME!

Is there an ota link available? Looks awesome!

Going to add soon. Some troubles to support it on the web site.
As temporary solution here the links here:
BBTran 1.0 (4.1) OTA
BBTran 1.0 (4.2+) OTA

I installed it and I got service unavailable. Does it work wih BIS-B?

Best,
Jaime

How to I do the OTA. I went to your web page on my BB browser and I don't see the site to get to OTA (only the zip files). Maybe my lack of knowledge is the reason.

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Disregard. I got it. Looking good. Thank you. Will let you know how it goes.

dshipmon, do not go to the website there is no OTA links in download section there. only in blog. But now you need just open in BB browser one of the following urls here or above:
BBTran 1.0 (4.2+) OTA
BBTran 1.0 (4.1) OTA


Jaime, It works for BIS. Actually I have no BES device to test but I believe it works both BIS and BES.

If you have service unavailable - try to connect again. The service is not stable yet. I do more testing and also some turning now.

Actually your "service unavailable" is also a positive feedback for me

It's working good for me.

It would be nice if it pronounced the translation (even if it means you would have to charge; I will purchase it). It may be an app out like that, but your setup looks good.

Hm, I should think about pronunciation feature. But it seems to be very very hard especially for all that languages

I'm going to provide 2 version of BBTran later. Free and Commercial one. The only thing I want is so that Free users fill comfortable using BBTran. Perhaps there will be just a limitation for translations per day but enough for nonprofessional usage. Limitation looks reasonable because online services also have limitations and I should care not to exceed them or pay something to providers otherwise with growing number of users we'll have problems.

Anyway I'm open for suggestions and features requests because this is software not only for myself but for anyone who needs it.

Are you sure that does work with BIS-B (No APN available)? I tried many times and it does not work.

Best,
Jaime

I investigated pronunciation feature a little.
There are 2 options:
1. Autogenerated text-to-voice
Simple to implement but only english and not very precise

2. Reuse some available services online.
I found only English and Spain but last looks to hold not a large collection of words.

Anyway it is rather real to implement. Perhaps as a "say it" for translation or as another Mode like Word/Text/Pronounce.

Oops. What is BIS-B ?
Need to investigate. I hope tuning the connection string will do the trick.
Would be nice If you can test it when fix be ready.

I'll be glad to help. There are many developers here that will be eager to help, I guess.

Best,
Jaime

Yes, looks that it's a regular task, so I'll investigate it or ask on Developer forum ;)

I can understand having to deal with the many languages. I was being selfish and not considerate (I only need spanish translation). I will keep using this and if I run across any thing I can recommed then I would.

Suggestion: when starting up the program, replace "Loading..." with more informative text, like "Downloading latest translation options..." or something like that, to provide a little bit more information why the program is talking to the internet when it starts up.

Maybe even a status callback below that, showing more detail ("connecting to website..." "querying for latest translation services..." "downloading latest translation options...") and so on, for those of us who like to know what's going on while it's working.

Ok. Will do. Actually it was in beta but later I removed not to overload user with much details. Also now there is only one request on startup. it checks for a new services and if there are some automatically get it in one request. This allows to safe time because every request takes more time on wireless devices ;)

Question: if your website is not reachable (let's say there is a DNS problem, something you have no control over - it happens!), will the program still work? Does the program talk directly to Google (etc.), or is the data sent through your server for manipulation? (like to rip out the useless stuff and make the app work easier)

Ok. I'm now in topic of that BIS-B.
current BBTran does not user any special connection parameters so it should use MDS or BIS.
I'm going to add options screen to change preferences:
MDS(BIS)/Direct TCP
for TCP there will be an option to use GPRS/WiFi/WiFi preferred.
It will use APN Settings from options but I'll add custom connection string option,
so that anyone can add specific apn or WAP proxy options.

Tomorrow will start. Now going to sleep ;)

I would like to include everything into BB App but it is too complicated and not flexible. So now I have my inline gateway.
Unfortunately I can easily rich some limitations related to max requests/ip for some services. (i do not know if there are some limitations now)
But as a benefit I can extend services onfly, quickly fix them if providers will change smth. and also O'm going to add Mindows Mobile Application with the same functionality and a vista sidebar gadget. So that I can do everything once ;)
Also my gateway response is very small in size comparing to HTML pages parsed for some services! Just info, nothing else, safe your traffic.

I just downloaded BBTran and it says:
"Sorry, service is temporarly unavailable..."

Kept saying the same thing... I deleted the application!

Well 2-3 retries is enough to understand that something's wrong with the connection. I'm going to add connection properties to play with different settings.

But anyway, Jack, if you say that there are some problems - please give me some details about your device. what the model, operator and what the connection type (BES/BIS, MDS/TCP, WiFi or GPRS etc. ). That would be really useful without such info I can only guess ;)

I have the T-Mobile 8320
It's both WiFi & Edge

I have the same device/service, mine is working fine. Do you have a standard BlackBerry data plan, and do you have the proper APN configured on your device for T-Mobile?

Yes I have the $20 data plan, (for using the Curve as a modem for my lappy) and the APN is configured properly: wap.voicestream.com

I have no problem getting on the internet or most programs.
However, I'm not getting Opera Mini to work either...

Hmmm, that's a clue too - my Opera Mini (the new 4.1, too) is working just fine. I have the $60 "all in one" plan for BlackBerry, rather than the $20 data add-on - I forget the exact name, you get BIS + email + unlimted SMS and 1000mins as a package.

Try this:

ALT + LGLG
Menu -> Clear Log
Menu -> Options -> change from 'Warning' to 'Debug'.
Escape (Save), Escape (Home screen).

Run BBTran, let it error out.

ALT + LGLG
Scroll to bottom and read backwards up -- do you see any log messages that might help indicate what the problem is? You should see something like:

a.System: CMM: BBTran(some number) no sig from 0x33 (some number) == normal output

Next, a few lines above you should see the standard opening of the data connection, it usually looks like:

a.net.rim.tunnel: Open-wap.voicestream.com
a.net.rim.tunnel: Kick-wap.voicestream.com

(in reverse order). In your case, I would be expecting to see some sort of additional error messages in here that's indicating why it can't talk out the TCP tunnel... in order to get more low-level debug output, the author needs to add special programming hooks into his app first and add a "enable debug mode" inside his program; without that, we can only see the system level debugging messages.

(remember to reset the ALT + LGLG options back to Warning when you're done playing)

First, I have the T-Mobile Family unlimted SMS and 1000mins plan and had added the data plan with it last month. Comes to $129 now.

Second, I had deleted the BBtrans program already.

Third, What is ALT + LGLG? I'm new to the Blackberry as of two months ago.

Once I get all this sorted out, maybe I'll try the Opera Mini and BBtrans. Meanwhile the BB works great on the internet and as a modem for my XPS notebook.

wow great software!
any updates planned?

What is ALT + LGLG?