Screen Translator

God-Tier On-Device Manga/Comic Translator for Android

Screen Translator is an advanced Android accessibility tool designed specifically for reading non-translated comics, mangas, and manhwas. It runs quietly in the background and automatically translates on-screen text when you stop interacting with the screen.

No more manually cropping screenshots or switching apps! Just read, pause, and let the AI translate directly over your comic.

Key Features

• Thin APK Architecture: By leveraging Google Play Services, the initial app download size is drastically reduced. No language models are bundled -- download only what you need!
• Smart AI Download Manager: Language models are downloaded on-demand in the background via Google Play Services. You only download the languages you read.
• Smart Auto-Detect: The engine intelligently falls back through your installed OCR models without wasting battery or data on uninstalled languages.
• Material Design 3: A gorgeous, modern UI featuring a seamless Light, Dark, and System theme switcher.
• Full Overlay Customization: Control every aspect of the translation bubble:
  • Placement mode (Direct overlay / Left / Right)
  • Opacity (10% - 100%)
  • Corner radius (0dp - 32dp)
  • Text size (8sp - 28sp)
  • Bubble color (White / Black / Yellow)
  • Border toggle
  • Auto-clear timer (Off / 1-30 seconds)
• Smart Inactivity Sensor: Translates the screen automatically if you don't scroll or touch the screen for a specific duration (default: 3 seconds).
• Dynamic Bubble Overlay: Translations feature rounded corners mapped directly over the original text bubbles.
• Draggable UI: If a translation bubble covers a character's face, simply touch and drag it out of the way!
• 100% On-Device & Offline: Uses Google ML Kit's on-device models. Fast, private, and requires no internet connection once the models are downloaded.
• Splash Screen: Beautiful animated splash screen on app launch.

Technology Stack

• Language: Kotlin
• Build System: Gradle Kotlin DSL (.kts)
• UI Framework: Material Design 3 (Material Components for Android)
• Screen Capture: MediaProjection API (Foreground Service)
• User Tracking: AccessibilityService (Monitors TYPE_VIEW_SCROLLED)
• AI Engine: Google ML Kit via Play Services
  • Text Recognition (v2) for Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Devanagari, and Latin scripts.
  • ModuleInstall API for on-demand model delivery.
  • On-Device Translation.

How to Install and Run

1. Clone this repository:

   git clone https://github.com/ervareza/screen-translator.git
   cd screen-translator

2. Open the project in Android Studio or Google Antigravity IDE.
3. Let Gradle sync and download the required dependencies.
4. Run ./gradlew assembleDebug to build the APK.
5. Install the APK on an Android device running Android 8+ (API 26+).

Required Permissions

Upon first launch, the app will ask you to manually grant:

• Display over other apps (SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW): Required to draw the translation bubbles over your comics.
• Accessibility Service: Required to detect when you stop scrolling.
• Notification Permission (Android 13+): Required to show the foreground service notification.
• Screen Recording (MediaProjection): Required to capture the comic's image when translating.

Contributing

We welcome all contributions! Whether it's adding support for new languages, optimizing the OCR bounding boxes, or improving the UI, your help is appreciated.

Please read our CONTRIBUTING.md for details on our code of conduct, and the process for submitting pull requests to us.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.