GTranslate enables you to internationalize your WordPress blog easily. You just need to install GTranslate WordPress plugin and drag the widget to the sidebar. The plugin will not only convert the language of your home page but also individual posts and pages. In addition to WordPress, GTranslate is also available as an extension for Joomla and Drupal.
In an interview with Anand Narayanaswamy, Editor in Chief, NetAns, Edvard Ananyan shared exclusive information about the GTranslate including the difficulties faced during the development of the plugin.
Can you please share with us the main purpose behind the creation of GTranslate?
The main purpose is to make websites multilingual of course. There are many solutions around, but GTranslate is a unique solution which can work with any platform and make it multilingual easily, save a lot of time and money of course by using automatic machine translations in combination with human translations.
Please tell us what is different in GTranslate when compared to other similar tools?
I have been struggling creating websites which needed multilingual solutions. Depending on a platform you have to install software, learn how it works to know how to translate different parts of your content. Sometimes you find yourself in a trouble, because you are not able to translate some of the 3rd party extensions for your platform, because the multilingual solution you use doesn’t know it’s structure and how to translate it.
So I came up with an idea of creating a general solution which will work for any platform. All the platform generate HTML code which later get’s rendered by browsers. So I have decided that I need to parse the HTML code, translate it and it will solve the problem.
At first I was providing a software which should be installed on your server, which of course had some server requirements, which was limiting the usage. But now GTranslate provides software as a service solution which I call translation delivery network or a translation proxy. It doesn’t require software to be installed at all, which makes it perfect general solution for any website.
Does GTranslate create any new folder on the background for the purpose of translation?
GTranslate keeps all the translations in cloud translation cache, so it doesn’t consume any space.
Did you faced any hurdles during the development of WordPress plugin?
At first I have started providing GTranslate for Joomla platform, it was year 2008. It became popular and I have decided to spend more time on it and make it available on other platforms as well like WordPress and Drupal. Of course this platforms are different, but all of them have great communities and easy to find documentation. Of course when you have something ready and want to convert it to a different platform you want to do it as fast as possible.
It creates issues, because when you are in a hurry you do not want to read documentation and you want the things to just work with as little modification as possible. It is easy to get frustrated sometimes, because the platforms are designed differently. However if you spend some time learning about the structure of the platform, check some hello world examples, it will make the development process very easy.
Can you share your company’s other products?
GTranslate is backed up by my company 2GLux, which provides different solutions for Joomla and WordPress platforms. We have free open source products as well as paid products: Jumi – custom PHP code for Joomla, SexyPolling – possing solution for WordPress and Joomla, GMap – Google Maps with drawing features for Joomla, and many other little products which make life easier.
Can you reveal the future roadmap of GTranslate?
GTranslate provides automatic translations for free, right now we are working to make it a one stop shop, so customers who use GTranslate solution can find professional translators with ease.
