What do you when you are reading a web page in a foreign language or when you don’t know the meaning of a word? Simple, you would say I just open a dictionary or a specific software and look it up.
Photo Credit: Dantesz - Edited by Nicolo’ Canali De Rossi
That’s what most people would do…But not what Firefox users would!
This fantastic add-on called Quick TransLation is what you need: it automatically translates the text you select on any web page in Firefox in a pop-up menu.
Besides the normal dictionary translation, Quick TransLation also shows results from Wikipedia and other online dictionaries.
It also integrates some of the most famous websites of the net: the translation windows presents 7 buttons on the top of your results:
- Copy: Copy the text to the clipboard.
- Google: Search the selected term on Google.
- Yahoo: Search the selected term on Yahoo.
- Answers: Search the selected term on Answer.com.
- Flickr: Find pictures on Flickr basing on the highlighted words.
- YouTube: Find videos on YouTube basing on the highlighted words.
- Wikipedia: Open the Wikipedia page related to that term.
Two little icons will appear on the bottom right of your browser:
The first icon has three functions, that will change every time you click this button:
- Green sign: When the green sign is on, Quick TransLation is running normally and will get results in the pop-up menu.
- Red sign: When the red sign displays, it means that QTL is not running and will not translate the text you select.
- No sign: When there’s no sign on the button, the software is partially running: the selected text will be translated in the address bar.
The second icon allows you to set which are your first languages, so that it will display those results first.
Quick TransLation is free to download and use.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5641
Upgrade: As underlined in the comments below, version 8.0 brings many new features. One of these, allows you to configure QTL from a web-page: just go to http://www.qtl.co.il/conf/index.xml, and you will be able to set if you want to use the keyboard combination Ctrl/Alt to translate, and to select your favorite search engines and languages in order to get results ONLY from those sites you like best.
5 Comments
Hi
Grate post
Version 8.0 should be public soon, then you can customize the extension at Oficial Site
Some tips:
- If you type a word in the search bar and press insert you will get a translation for this text.
- If you select an email address (e.g qtl.co.il[at].gmail.com )an email icon will also appear letting you quick send email.
- If you select a url address (e.g http://qtl.co.il ) a “go to” icon will appear letting you go to the website at a click.
Also most of the user looking for the option to activate the translation oncly when the CTRL/ALT key are held down, This is also possible to configure at the configuration page (version 8.0 and above)
Best
Gilad
Two corrections:
- The email address should be of course qtl.co.il[at]gmail.com
- The web site should be http://www.qtl.co.il
I’ve just upgrade to Firefox 3.x beta, and qtl is not working anymore. Does someone know how to fix this?
Thanks, Mat.
Hey Mat,
Have you tried to upgrade to the latest QTL version? QTL 10?
It should work with FFX 3.
Let me know if it works,
Nicolo’
QTL doesn’t works with Firefox 3 RC2.
2 Trackbacks
[...] fast actions, and even a click more can mean slowing down for you? If you like extensions like QuickTranslation and AutoCopy, which respectively translated and copied text on selection, then I have what you are [...]
[...] fast actions, and even a visit more can mean slowing down for you? whether you like extensions like QuickTranslation and AutoCopy, which respectively translated and copied text on selection, thereupon I have what you [...]