Translator for Command Palette

Languages: English | 繁體中文

Translator for Command Palette is a translation extension for Windows Command Palette. It brings translation, language selection, copying results, and opening the original translation website into a single Command Palette workflow.

The project has been upgraded to .NET 10. The main app is packaged as an MSIX Command Palette extension and supports win-x64 and win-arm64 releases.

Screenshots

Features

• Integrates with Windows Command Palette and provides a top-level Translator command.
• Includes three translation providers, Bing, Google, and Aliyun, with Bing as the default.
• Lets you choose the default translation source from Preferred provider in the extension settings.
• Supports automatic source-language detection, with Traditional Chinese zht as the default target language.
• Lets you search, select, and save the default target language from the Target language page.
• Supports the text >> languageCode query syntax to override the target language for a single translation.
• Lets you customize the query operator from Translate operator in the extension settings, for example by changing it to =>.
• Translation results can be copied directly. More actions can also copy the original text or open the Bing / Google / Aliyun Translate webpage.
• The Google provider also shows Dictionary items when dictionary data is included in the response.
• Includes a built-in Supported Languages page for browsing language codes and copying example queries.
• Translation input uses a short delayed update to avoid sending a request on every keystroke.

Usage

After installation, open Windows Command Palette, then search for and run Translator.

Enter text directly to translate it:

hello world

When no target language is specified, the configured Target language is used. The initial default is Traditional Chinese zht.

To specify the target language for a single translation, use the default operator >>:

hello world >> ja
open source software >> fr
今天天氣很好 >> en

If you change Translate operator to => in settings, queries will use that operator instead:

hello world => ja

Blank or invalid custom operators fall back to the default value, >>.

Settings

Command Palette extension settings currently provide three options:

• Preferred provider: Choose the default translation provider. Available options are Bing, Google, and Aliyun.
• Translate operator: Set the operator used in queries to override the target language. The default is >>.
• Display language: Choose the language used for the extension's interface.

The Target language item on the translation page opens the language settings page. The selected language is saved immediately. Settings are written locally to:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\CmdPalTranslator\settings.json

The settings file stores:

• targetLanguageId
• preferredProviderId
• translateOperator
• displayLanguageId

If the settings file does not exist, has invalid contents, uses an unknown target language, or sets the target language to auto, the project falls back to its built-in defaults.

Supported Languages

The currently built-in language codes are:

Code	Language
en	English
zht	Chinese (Traditional)
zhs	Chinese (Simplified)
ja	Japanese
ko	Korean
fr	French
de	German
es	Spanish
it	Italian
ru	Russian
ar	Arabic
he	Hebrew
pt	Portuguese
th	Thai

LanguageCatalog maps the internal language codes to the provider codes required by Bing, Google, and Aliyun. For example, Traditional Chinese uses zh-TW in Google, zh-Hant in Bing, and zh-tw in Aliyun.

Project Structure

.
├─ README.md
├─ privacy.md
└─ src
   ├─ CmdPalTranslator.slnx
   ├─ CmdPalTranslator
   │  ├─ Pages
   │  ├─ Commands
   │  ├─ Assets
   │  └─ Package.appxmanifest
   ├─ CmdPalTranslator.Core
   │  ├─ Models
   │  ├─ Providers
   │  └─ Services
   └─ CmdPalTranslator.Tests

• src/CmdPalTranslator/: Main Command Palette extension app, commands, pages, MSIX manifest, and assets.
• src/CmdPalTranslator.Core/: Core logic for translation providers, query parsing, language catalog, settings read/write, and related functionality.
• src/CmdPalTranslator.Tests/: MSTest project containing unit and live integration tests.

Development

Requirements

• Windows 11
• Visual Studio 2022 with .NET / Windows app development workloads
• .NET 10 SDK
• Windows SDK / MSIX build tools
• Network access, because providers call public web endpoints

Package versions are centrally managed in src/Directory.Packages.props. The test runner uses Microsoft Testing Platform.

Restore and Build

Run from the repository root:

dotnet restore src/CmdPalTranslator.slnx
dotnet build src/CmdPalTranslator.slnx -p:Platform=x64

To build only the main app:

dotnet build src/CmdPalTranslator/CmdPalTranslator.csproj -p:Platform=x64

ARM64 is also supported:

dotnet build src/CmdPalTranslator.slnx -p:Platform=ARM64

Run Tests

Run unit tests:

dotnet test src/CmdPalTranslator.Tests/CmdPalTranslator.Tests.csproj --filter TestCategory=Unit

Run live integration tests:

dotnet test src/CmdPalTranslator.Tests/CmdPalTranslator.Tests.csproj --filter TestCategory=Integration

Integration tests call the live Bing, Google, and Aliyun online translation endpoints. They are useful when verifying network access and provider behavior.

Build MSIX

Create an x64 Release MSIX:

dotnet build src/CmdPalTranslator/CmdPalTranslator.csproj -c Release -p:Platform=x64 -p:GenerateAppxPackageOnBuild=true -p:AppxPackageDir=AppPackages\x64\

Create an ARM64 Release MSIX:

dotnet build src/CmdPalTranslator/CmdPalTranslator.csproj -c Release -p:Platform=ARM64 -p:GenerateAppxPackageOnBuild=true -p:AppxPackageDir=AppPackages\ARM64\

Before building, scale-specific icons are automatically copied to the base filenames required by Store / MSIX validation.

Adding a Display Language

The extension stores all UI strings in JSON files under src/CmdPalTranslator/Localization/. At startup, LocalizationService scans that directory and discovers every *.json file automatically. Adding a new display language therefore requires only one step.

Create a new JSON string file

Add a file named <language-tag>.json in src/CmdPalTranslator/Localization/ (for example, ja-JP.json). The file must contain a _meta.displayName key with the native name of the language, plus every UI key translated from en-US.json.

// src/CmdPalTranslator/Localization/ja-JP.json
{
  "_meta.displayName": "日本語",

  "Settings.PreferredProvider.Label": "優先翻訳プロバイダー",
  ...
}

Keep all {0}, {1} format placeholders exactly as they appear in en-US.json; they are replaced at runtime with context-specific values.

On the next startup, LocalizationService reads _meta.displayName from every JSON file in the directory and builds SupportedLanguages from those entries. The Display language dropdown in the settings panel is then populated from that list automatically — no code changes are needed.

Publishing

You can publish to Microsoft Store through Microsoft Partner Center, or submit to WinGet. See the official documentation for the Command Palette extension packaging and publishing workflow:

Publish a Command Palette extension

Notes

• The Bing, Google, and Aliyun providers currently obtain translation results through public web endpoints. Endpoint behavior may change in the future.
• The Bing provider first obtains and caches validation information from the translation page. If validation expires, it retries once.
• The Aliyun provider fetches and caches CSRF metadata before submitting translation requests.
• The HTTP client has built-in gzip/deflate decompression, a 30-second timeout, and retries for transient errors.
• Release builds enable trimming and use source generation for JSON serialization to support NativeAOT/trim-friendly builds.
• To add a new translation source, implement ITranslatorProvider, then register the provider in TranslatorService.