Creating machine translation services

To develop a custom machine translation service, you need to define a class that inherits from AbstractMachineTranslationService (found in the CMS.TranslationServices namespace).

The service class must override and implement the following abstract methods:

Defining machine service classes

The following example demonstrates how to write a class providing functionality for a machine translation service. The sample class does not use a real translation service, it only converts the source text to upper case. When creating your own classes, replace the code of the methods with your own translation logic or call the API of the appropriate web service.

1. Open your Xperience administration solution in Visual Studio.

2. Create a new Class Library project in the solution (or reuse an existing custom project).

   • The project in the example is named Custom, but you can use any other name (e.g. with a unique company prefix).

3. Add references to the required Xperience libraries (DLLs) for the new project:

   1. Right-click the project and select Add -> Reference.

   2. Select the Browse tab of the Reference manager dialog, click Browse and navigate to the Lib folder of your administration project.

   3. Add references to the following libraries (and any others that you may need in your custom code):

      • CMS.Base.dll
      • CMS.Core.dll
      • CMS.DataEngine.dll
      • CMS.TranslationServices.dll

4. Reference the custom project from the administration project (CMSApp).

5. Create a new class under your custom project. For example, name the class SampleMachineTS.cs.

6. Edit the class and change its code to the following:

   Copy

   
   
   
    using System;
    using System.IO;
   
    using CMS.TranslationServices;
   
    namespace Custom
    {
        public class SampleMachineTS : AbstractMachineTranslationService
        {
            /// <summary>
            /// Translates the specified text from the source language to the target language.
            /// Must return the translated text as a string.
            /// </summary>
            /// <param name="text">Text to translate</param>
            /// <param name="sourceLang">Source language culture code</param>
            /// <param name="targetLang">Target language culture code</param>
            public override string Translate(string text, string sourceLang, string targetLang)
            {
                // "Translates" the text to upper case.
                return text.ToUpper();
            }
   
            /// <summary>
            /// Automatically attempts to detect the language of the source text.
            /// Returns the culture code of the detected language.
            /// </summary>
            /// <param name="text">Text to be processed</param>
            public override string Detect(string text)
            {
                // Use your service to detect the language. This example always returns English. 
                return "en-US";
            }
   
            /// <summary>
            /// Returns a stream of sound generated by text-to-speech services (if supported).
            /// </summary>
            /// <param name="text">Text to be processed</param>
            /// <param name="lang">Culture code of the text's language</param>
            public override Stream Speak(string text, string lang)
            {
                // This service provider does not support Text-to-speech.
                throw new NotImplementedException();
            }
   
            /// <summary>
            /// Checks the necessary prerequisities needed for the service to work,
            /// e.g. availability of credentials for connecting to the service etc.
            /// </summary>
            public override bool IsAvailable()
            {
                // This service provider does not require any settings and does not depend on
                // any other services, therefore is always available.
                return true;
            }
        }
    }
   
   
    

   The system calls the methods of the class as needed when the given translation service is used.

7. Save all changes and Rebuild your solution.

Registering machine services in the system

Once you have implemented the class with the required functionality, you need to register the translation service:

1. Sign in to the administration interface.

2. Open the Translation services application.

3. Click New translation service.

4. Enter the following values into the service’s properties:

   • Display name: Sample machine service
   • Code name: Leave the (automatic) option. The system generates the code name as SampleMachineService (based on the display name).
   • Service provider - Assembly name: Custom (the name of the assembly containing your translation service class)
   • Service provider - Class: Custom.SampleMachineTS
   • Is machine translation service: Yes (selected)
   • Service is enabled: Yes (selected)

5. Click Save.

The service is now ready to be used.

Result

When submitting pages for translation, users can select the Sample machine service as one of the translation service options. Using this option creates the new language version of the page as a copy of the original content, with all characters converted to upper case.

Users can also call the custom translation service when localizing resource strings.