Budget Translator

Affordable WordPress website translation with local segment caching.

Version 1.3.0

Features

• Choose source and target languages
• Automatic translation via MyMemory or LibreTranslate (free), DeepL or Google (API key)
• Identical text passages are hashed and cached — never sent to the API twice
• Admin menu: Bulk → By post → One by one → Settings (last)
• Review UX: bulk list, per-post review with auto-fill, and one-by-one confirm-and-advance
• Translation quality pipeline: term/link/number/shortcode guards, punctuation affix, source auto-corrections, technical passthrough
• Auto-confirm when source already looks like the target language; cache cleanup of invalid/duplicate rows on review open
• Sortable review columns; confirmed items hidden from the default “needs work” lists
• Do-not-translate list and per-language glossary
• Code / console prompts are not translated (code, pre, kbd, shell lines, …)
• Exclude post types, IDs and URL paths
• Auto-queue on save; SEO meta (Yoast) and image alts
• JSON export/import of the translation cache
• Frontend URLs as /en/... language prefixes
• Language switcher (footer, shortcode [bt_language_switcher], Gutenberg block)

Requirements

• WordPress 6.0+
• PHP 8.0+

Documentation

User handbook (GitHub Wiki): https://github.com/sfambach/wp-budget-translator/wiki

Installation

1. Copy this folder to wp-content/plugins/budget-translator
2. Activate Budget Translator
3. Open Budget Translator → Settings, choose languages and provider
4. Optionally fill Do not translate / Glossary and exclusion rules
5. Click Translate website now
6. Visit /en/ (or your target language) on the frontend

FAQ

Critical error / blank page on /en/

On-the-fly translation calls the provider during page render. Free APIs (especially MyMemory) are slow; many uncached segments can exceed PHP’s max execution time.

Fix: Run Translate website now in Settings so the cache is filled. Frontend on-the-fly is limited to a few API calls per request; the rest stays in the source language until the next visit or batch run. Admins see a notice when this happens (optional for visitors).

Settings needed for good free-tier results

• Set a contact email for MyMemory (higher free quota).
• Prefer the batch job over relying only on on-the-fly.
• Use Do not translate for brands/codes and Glossary for fixed wording.
• For production quality, use DeepL or Google with an API key.

Source auto-corrections

Under Settings → Source auto-corrections (on by default) small source typos are normalized before caching/translation:

1. Spaces before punctuation: hier : → hier:, Ende . → Ende.
2. Multiple spaces → one space
3. No space at mid-word line breaks (el↵ectrolytic → electrolytic; normal breaks between words keep a space)
4. Sentence starts capitalized (first letter and after . ! ?). Single words without spaces (e.g. link labels like winnt) are left unchanged.

This does not change the post content in the WordPress editor — only how segments are matched and sent to the API. Individual rules can be toggled; the master switch disables all of them.

Confirmed text with punctuation

If Beschreibung is confirmed as Description, variants like Beschreibung: or (Beschreibung) reuse that translation, keep the surrounding punctuation (Description:, (Description)), and are stored as confirmed (or edited) — not left as auto. Only confirmed/edited cores are reused this way.

Provider responses are also aligned to the source edges: if the source has no trailing period, a machine result like Download . is stored as Download.

Numbers (issue numbers, versions, baud rates, units like 2,2uF) are masked during API calls and reattached if the provider drops them. Provider output is also cleaned (double spaces, spaces before punctuation). The + joiner is preserved.

Placeholders for links/terms/numbers/shortcodes use ASCII tokens (__BTL0__, …). Free APIs often corrupt Unicode brackets (⟦…⟧) into broken [[ / ]] fragments.

Code and console prompts

Text inside code / pre / kbd / samp and typical shell lines ($ npm …, git …, C:\…) is skipped. Long opaque IDs (hyphenated hex-heavy tokens) are skipped too. Short technical codes such as R1,R2, U1/U2, v2.1, or part numbers are not sent to the API — they are stored as confirmed passthrough (translated = source, provider=passthrough) so /en/ still resolves them. Opening Bulk or a post review upgrades older garbled auto rows (e.g. MyMemory turning R1,R2 into R1:R2) the same way. WordPress shortcodes (e.g. [display-posts …]) are also left unchanged — attribute values like category slugs must not be translated. Opening Bulk, One by one, or a By post detail also auto-removes leftover invalid API messages and code/console/shortcode cache rows. Manual purge buttons are no longer needed (or shown).

Review by post

Budget Translator → By post lists posts with confirmed %. Open one to see Needs work: texts from that post that are not confirmed yet.

Missing texts are machine-translated automatically when you open the post. Confirm the suggestions (or use Retry failed translations if the provider failed). Identical phrases already confirmed elsewhere are reused automatically.

Opening Bulk or a post review also re-applies the shared quality polish to auto rows (numbers, punctuation, placeholder cleanup) so both screens match the frontend. Near-duplicates that only differ by ellipsis (… vs ...) or case (MySQL collation twins) are collapsed to one row. Auto rows that only copy English→English (when the site source language is German) are removed and not created again.

Filters: Needs work (default) · Translated, not confirmed · Confirmed · All texts.

English text in a German site

Budget Translator translates whatever is currently in the post fields (title, content, excerpt, Yoast SEO). It does not keep a separate “original German” copy. If another plugin or tool previously wrote English into a German post, that English becomes the “source” segment. BT detects text that already looks like the target language (e.g. No module named 'serial' on a de→en site), skips the provider API, and auto-confirms a passthrough row (status=confirmed, translation = source) so it does not sit in “Needs work”. Opening Bulk upgrades older identical/already-target auto rows the same way. Restore the German wording in the editor if the post was overwritten.

Auto-queue on save

When enabled, publishing or updating a post/page (or menu item) appends changed texts to the translation queue. Keep the WP-Cron/bt_every_minute schedule active, or click Process next chunk.

Exclusions

Use excluded post types, post IDs, or URL path prefixes (e.g. /shop) so those areas stay in the source language and are not queued.

Export / Import

Export downloads the full segment cache as JSON. Import upserts by source hash; leave “Do not overwrite confirmed” checked to protect reviewed entries.

Emails and URLs appear translated

They should not. Budget Translator masks emails, http(s) links and common website hosts before sending text to providers.

Language switcher block

Insert the Language Switcher block in the editor, or use shortcode [bt_language_switcher].

Changelog

1.3.0

• Review menu: Bulk, By post, One by one, Settings
• Per-post review with on-open machine translation and confirmed-% overview
• Quality pipeline (guards, punctuation, source auto-corrections, technical passthrough)
• Auto-confirm target-language passthrough; cleanup of invalid/duplicate cache rows
• Sortable review lists; frontend timeout protection for free providers
• Language switcher Gutenberg block; German translations (languages/)

License

GPL-2.0-or-later