PSO2 Chat Translator v1.3

[Tanerinn]

PSO2 Chat Translator v1.8

What is this?
PSO2 Chat Translator is a simple tool that displays your PSO2 chat log in a separate window, and translates the Japanese messages into English (or any other language) for you using Google Translate, in real-time.

Why do I need it?
This tool makes understanding what's being said by Japanese-speaking players much easier for those who know little Japanese (or none at all). It saves time compared to copying text from the in-game chat window and pasting into a Google Translate tab in your browser. It can also show you the transliterated name of Japanese players, for example "ねこや" can be shown as the transliteration "Nekoya", which may be easier to remember if you're not accustomed to Japanese characters. You can also choose to show a transliteration of Japanese messages (romaji) rather than a translation.

How do I use it?
You must have chat logging enabled in game for it to work. Once you've downloaded it (and either installed it or extracted the zip archive), it's as easy as running it and watching the chat messages appear. Note that it will only display messages that appear in the chat after you have opened it, and will not show any messages from before it was opened.

What can this translate?
This tool will only translate messages from players in the standard chat channels (public, party, team and whisper). It cannot translate messages from NPCs, partner characters, nor system messages, as these do not appear in the chat log files. This does not interfere with any modifications you may have made to your game, as this itself is not a modification to the game.

How do I know it's safe?

• The tool and its installer have been analysed by several anti-virus and anti-malware programs, and the results of the scans are shown in the Jotti malware scan results in the downloads section below. None of the programs detected malware.
• The tool does not require administrator privileges to run, so it only has limited access to your computer.
• The only access to the internet is to https://translate.googleapis.com and https://www.googleapis.com to acquire the Google translations, https://api.cognitive.microsofttranslator.com to acquire the Microsoft translations, https://api-free.deepl.com and https://api.deepl.com to acquire the DeepL translations, and to http://www.bakagaijins.com/chat-translator/update.xml to check for updates. You can therefore set your firewall to only permit the tool access to these domains if you wish.

How do I remove it?
If you no longer want to use it, you can remove it easily:

• If you installed it using the setup installer, run the uninstaller from Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel.
• If you used the zip archive, delete the files from the folder you extracted it to.

Screenshots

Spoiler!

The main window:


The general chat options:


The display options:


The translation service options:


The translation options:


The custom translation options:


Message transliteration:


Message translation:

Prerequisites
You must have the .NET Framework 4.5 installed to be able to run this tool. The installer will make sure you have this and download it if you do not. If you will be using the Zip archive, you can download the .NET Framework 4.5 from Microsoft.

Download
The translator can be downloaded either as an installer capable of putting shortcuts in your Start Menu and on your Desktop, or as a standalone program in a Zip archive to be extracted wherever you please.

Installer (Setup executable, v1.8, 5.1 MB, View VirusTotal malware scan results):

• MEGA
• Direct Download

Standalone (Zip archive, v1.8, 1.3 MB, View VirusTotal malware scan results):

• MEGA
• Direct Download

Changelog

Spoiler!

Version 1.8 (June 26, 2021):

• Added support for Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis. You can choose which game to translate from the "Options" window.
• Added support for the DeepL translation API (https://www.deepl.com). An API key is required to use this service, but a free subscription is available.

Version 1.7 (May 1, 2019):

• Added support for the GROUP chat type. The colour can be customised from the "Options" window.
• Updated Microsoft translation to use version 3 of the Translator Text API.
• Added support for the Microsoft transliteration service.
• Updated the list of known lobby actions to include many of the more recent ones.

Version 1.6 (August 6, 2016):

• Added an option for which transliteration service should be used. The Google (Free) service provides high-quality transliterations but may stop working at any time. The Unidecode service provides low-quality transliterations.
• Added automatic detection and correction of damaged configuration files.
• Added a translation mode option to allow translations of only Japanese messages, or translation of all messages. When set to "Auto Translate Everything", the translation service will automatically detect the source language - this will allow translations from other languages, such as French, Russian and Spanish, into English. Alternatively, this can be used to translate English (and other languages) into Japanese, for a Japanese user of the tool.
• When the "Language" option is set to "Japanese", the user-translation window will now convert from Japanese into English.
• Updated the list of known lobby actions to include many of the more recent ones.
• Miscellaneous bug fixes.

Version 1.5.2 (January 3, 2016):

• Fixed a bug that meant chat messages stopped being displayed when a message with no content was handled (messages filtered by chat channel, or containing only a lobby action that gets removed).

Version 1.5.1 (January 2, 2016):

• Fixed a bug that meant transliteration was being performed by Unidecode, when using the Google (Free) service. Unidecode should now only be used when using the Google (API Credentials) and Microsoft (API Credentials) services.

Version 1.5 (January 2, 2016):

• Rectified an issue with failing translations.
• Added support for the official Microsoft and Google translation APIs, both of which require credentials to use. If you don't wish to use the official APIs, you can continue to use the old free service, by selecting Google (Free) in the Options window. Please be aware that the free service may stop working at any time.
• When using the official Microsoft and Google translation services, transliteration will be performed by the Unidecode library, which unfortunately provides less accurate transliterations than those from the Google (Free) service. Neither Microsoft nor Google provide transliteration services through their official translation APIs.

Version 1.4 (October 12, 2015):

• Rectified an issue with failing translations.
• Improved the translation options by allowing customisation of how player names and chat messages are displayed, through the use of macros.
• Added hotkeys to scroll the chat log up or down by one page. They can be set up at the bottom of the "General" tab in the "Options" window.
• Added options to filter which chat channels are displayed.
• Added an option to hide unrecognised and invalid chat commands.
• Updated the list of known lobby actions to include many of the more recent ones.

Version 1.3.1 (April 9, 2015):

• Hotfix to rectify an issue with failing translations, caused by Google Translate requiring a CAPTCHA.

Version 1.3 (August 9, 2013):

• Colour chat macros such as {red} are now hidden from the chat window.
• Improved the ability to remove the letter 'w' from Japanese messages before translating - it will now remove the uppercase letter W, as well as the full-width characters 'ｗ' and 'Ｗ'.
• The overlay chat border's opacity can now be changed separately to that of the chat background, using a slider. To disable the border in overlay mode, simply drag the slider to the far left (transparent) side.
• It’s now possible to keep Japanese chat messages in Japanese. This may be of use to people who wish to use more advanced translation programs, but find they are unable to use their translation program with PSO2/GameGuard.
• Added a new textbox to the user-translation window, showing the transliteration (romaji) of the Japanese translation.
• Updated the list of known lobby actions to include many of the more recent ones.
• Miscellaneous bug fixes.

Version 1.2 (May 3, 2013):

• URLs in chat are now converted into clickable hyperlinks.
• Added ability to change the translation language to something other than English.
• Added a user-translation window to let the user translate a message from their own language, into Japanese, and then see a translation of the Japanese back into their own language to verify it.
• Added an option to show/hide chat commands, such as “/la dance5”.
• Added an option to remove the letter “w” from Japanese messages, prior to translation. This can improve the accuracy of the translation.
• Added an option to put chat messages on the next line, beneath the name.
• It’s now possible to show chat messages as both the translation and the transliteration (romaji/romanisation).
• Changed the overlay chat border to a more PSO2-like version, created by Gama at PSO-World.com. Thanks!
• Miscellaneous bug fixes.

Version 1.1 (March 5, 2013):

• Added overlay mode with transparency support.
• Added support for message transliteration (romanisation/romaji).
• Added always-on-top option.
• Added font family, size and style options.
• Added update checker.
• Public chat colour is now used for all chat channels when “Display messages in colour” is unchecked.

Version 1.0 (February 25, 2013):

• First release of the program.

I hope this will be of use to many of you, and please do let me know if you encounter any problems or have any feature suggestions!

Thanks,
Tanerinn.

[Arrancar]

Very nice! Looks good if it works. After getting home, ill check it out. I'll scan it again just to be sure... :P

[Klypto]

Very nice.

What language did you write it in?

Have you looked into realtime read/translating?

[Arrancar]

Very nice.

What language did you write it in?

Have you looked into realtime read/translating?

Yeah, it would definitely be nice if it didn't constantly connect to Google Translate.

[Tanerinn]

Very nice.

What language did you write it in?

Have you looked into realtime read/translating?

Thanks. This was written in C# using the .NET Framework 4.5. I'm not too sure what you mean by realtime read/translating, as I believe this is already what it does!

Yeah, it would definitely be nice if it didn't constantly connect to Google Translate.

It only makes a very small HTTP request and receives a small HTTP response per message, much less than the full HTML of the Google Translate webpage. Is there some problem with connecting to Google?

[Klypto]

Mybad, I misread the part about getting chat after you opened it. xD


What about translated output?

like I say something in English, then type -t or some other flag/command and it puts the Japanese text of what I had just chatted in the clipboard or automatically sends that text. (quick enter / paste / enter)

Also, do you think you can play the audio files from the google tts api to allow players to hear what is being said without having to minimize the game? Also, toggle it on/off with a chat command?

Sorry if I'm just dumping all these ideas out there. I've been wanting something like this for a wile, but I'm way too lazy to make it.

[Karmadon]

Nicely done. I particularly like the ability to add custom translations.

[Tanerinn]

Mybad, I misread the part about getting chat after you opened it. xD


What about translated output?

like I say something in English, then type -t or some other flag/command and it puts the Japanese text of what I had just chatted in the clipboard or automatically sends that text. (quick enter / paste / enter)

Also, do you think you can play the audio files from the google tts api to allow players to hear what is being said without having to minimize the game? Also, toggle it on/off with a chat command?

Sorry if I'm just dumping all these ideas out there. I've been wanting something like this for a wile, but I'm way too lazy to make it.

I'll certainly be thinking about how to offer translations from English to Japanese, and the use of a flag in the in-game chat window sounds interesting! I'll add both this and the text-to-speech feature to my to-do list.

Nicely done. I particularly like the ability to add custom translations.

Thank you!

[Shirai]

Thank you for making this

It'll be helpful to many, and I'll surely use this to get a slight understanding of some things that Japanese players say when playing with them(especially for some words I don't know ;_.

[UnLucky]

Nice, I was thinking something that would do exactly this would be possible. Thanks for making this!

I would imagine it would be simple to make one for the other logs as well, right? So you can see exactly what item you picked up, sent to storage, or won from a scratch card.