Adding as a new post since all replies to the plugin are otherwise deleted on this forum. Continuing the discussion from Discourse Translator:
Seems API’s are available for those interested, in addition to their “Developer Pro Account”.
They also have some simulator here -
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Hi all,
I have in previous (now deleted) posts expressed the same desire. Think in principle it should be quick work to add another service provider with the authentication framework already being in place. I think an alternative well-performing translation service is well suited for our Discourse community.
As such I have just reached out to Deepl pointing them to Discourse and this plugin. Having looked at their propositions, I have asked if they would be open to consider a free-tier type proposition for not-for-profit/small-time users like myself and many others.
Being open source one of their developers working with the plugin devs would probably make quick work of adding another service provider. I know I don’t have the skills yet but happy to test of course.
I’ll let you know what I hear.
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Hi, just had a real nice conversation with the DeepL folks. They are about to launch a new entry proposition with some free tier and the obvious restrictions. Should fit our use very nicely. I’ll get the specifics shortly. The technical stuff they can’t work on that should be on us. But they can provide all the necessary documentation.
I expect to get the info by next week, would there be people able to do the development work to add DeepL into the default options? Would love to do it myself so I can learn, but I’d need some coaching. Also happy to test of course.
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Here’s more info on the DeepL free tier and related restrictions, it is available to everyone and free as long as you stay under 500k characters a month.
https://www.deepl.com/pro?cta=header-prices#developer
Had look at some of my top topics and conservatively speaking they are about 7500 characters and the rest below that. If the topics would average 5000k (which is conservative too) that would mean 100 topics could be translated once without hitting the limit each month. That should work for the scale of the forum that I run.
By the way: used this online tool https://www.charactercountonline.com/ and just did Ctrl+A in the web page and pasted that there. Is there a more elegant way to get the statistics on the character count for posts and/or topics?
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Hi @koen360,
thanks a lot for the updates on DeepL. They are really helpful for me right now, as our team is searching for a way to make our forum community more welcoming for users with different language background.
Have you already implemented the connection of DeepL to your forum?
I found this post quite good as an orientation on how we could count our own characters. How to estimate the cost of translation using the translator plugin - #3 by lee-dohm But this online tool seems interesting too.
Hi that’s indeed a great post.
Haven’t implemented it yet. I am waiting for some proper time off to take a stab at adjusting the existing code but that will trigger quite some learning curves for what probably is short work for an actual developer. But I like the learning experience.
I also hear the plugin dev is having some time off, let’s see what he comes up with when he is back.
Thats great, hope the post its helpful for you.
Yes indeed, its not that easy as it seems at first glance. Do you actually know how the translation option would be visible for users, once implemented? I’m sure there are probably a few ways, but we are wondering if it would look like the translator plugin, with the visible button under each post?
Do you know something about that?
What I am hoping is that it will be exactly the same but just using a different translation service provider in the back. Just DeepL instead of google translate.
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Are there any news about that?
I need the Discourse Translator but I don’t want to use MS, Google or Yandex.
As I can see you don’t need a pro account from DeepL? But it’s limited to 500k chars/signs.
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I recommend you make a #marketplace topic and offer a bounty, we are open to accepting a PR that adds DeepL support.
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The options are:
- Someone outside CDCK contributes it.
- Someone with a personal interest in this writes it themselves
- Someone pays someone else, such as through the marketplace, to write it
- CDCK writes it
- A paying customer is willing to pay specifically for it
- Substantially many paying customers request it
- CDCK, in their own independent judgment, decide to spend time on it for their own reasons.
I think that complaining and expecting someone else to do the work for free is unlikely to be motivating either for CDCK or a third party.
I personally would appreciate this feature; as far as I am aware DeepL is the only translation service with a free tier, and I run a Discourse forum that is completely free and takes in no revenue to pay for translation services. But that doesn’t imply that anyone is obligated to write this feature for me, any more than it obligates me to write the feature because I wish it existed.
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Just created #marketplace topic for this PR:
Not sure if the pricing is fine enough, but let’s see.
This month’s price for Google translation using the plugin cost us around $250, which is kind of too much for us, given the fact we don’t monetize this feature at our forum.
Nobody told you should. This is called “contribution”. Wanna split the cost?
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I don’t know who or what CDCK is!
I never wrote that I want this plugin for free! And like I said before I just asked if there are news about it! So why do you blame me?
@sam told me to open a marketplace topic.
I have to think about it.
In another topic I wrote that I cannot code in Ruby, but I can code in other languages, so maybe I will have a look at it.
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That would be Discourse themselves.
Civilised Discourse Construction Kit 
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There’s no cannot in IT
Once you’ve learned a few languages Ruby is a delight and very straightforward.
What takes more time is learning Ruby on Rails which is a framework and has its own idiosyncrasies.
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Keep in mind too as there is now a marketplace topic fellow like minded community members could look at pooling funds to make it a reality much like a KS project idea.
Never heard about it, thanks for the clarification.
Yes I know, it’s more like “I don’t want it (like Java)”.
I saw it and I would pay for it, but only if it wouldn’t get available for free for all others. Why should I pay for something and all others have the benefit? In this case I’m an asshole and I know it.
I could live with it if someone would develop it and everyone who needs it would pay for a license, maybe as a lifetime license or monthly/yearly with support for updates and bugfixes.
That’s why it is open source. Do you feel uncomfortable using Discourse for free in the beginning? Considering you use it as a self-hosted solution like may of us do. Just think about how much it cost to develop this system to this day. In developer costs it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and yet both developers and community decided to share these developments with others, giving an example for everyone else to contribute further. Our marketplace request will hopefully be merged to the original Translator plugin, which will make it free to use for everyone.
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