Welcome to Crowdin’s December 2023 update. In this edition, we’re excited to announce the Google Gemini AI provider, along with other major new features and the introduction of the Crowdin AI Assistant’s new features. The new Strings projects are now accessible on crowdin.com. Check out the latest features, improvements, and plugin updates below.
AI’s Translation: Google Gemini, Better Fine-Tuning and More Context
Google Gemini
Google Gemini is now integrated as an engine in the Crowdin AI assistant, offering an alternative way to leverage AI in your localization projects.
More Context When Pre-Translating with AI
LLM works best when it’s given context. An entire file often contains enough contextual information for the machine to make a better translation. This new option can be enabled for any project where you use Crowdin AI Assistant, and when enabled, every time you translate a file, all strings are sent to LLM for reference. Even if you only translate one segment. This approach may affect your budget, but it should greatly improve quality and consistency. Existing translations you have in the file will also be sent to the LLM.
Want to see a live demo of the Crowdin AI Assitant?
Continuous Fine-Tuning
Fine-tuning is awesome! You can show the machine your terminology and all your previous translations from the TM. All translations coming from the LLM will take into account the training data. In the latest version, Crowdin AI Assistant allows you to do continuous fine-tuning to use the new terms and TM sets or add new glossaries and TMs to your fine-tuned model. It’s recommended to run fine-tuning every time you have a significant update to your localization assets.
A new model is created as a result of fine-tuning the stock model or continuous fine-tuning of an already fine-tuned model. This allows you to compare performance and roll back if the training went wrong.
To use this feature, simply select an already fine-tuned model in the Fine-tuning screen of the AI Assistant.
String-Based Projects
We’re excited to announce that Strings projects are now available on crowdin.com. With Strings Projects, Crowdin becomes a UI strings repository, simplifying the management of source and target languages in a collaborative grid. This is especially beneficial when translating multi-platform products, ensuring consistency across Android, iOS, desktop, web, and more.
You can use bundles to create resource files for each platform as you translate.
Strings projects are available now on crowdin.com. When creating a new project, there’s a checkbox to indicate your project type.
These projects are already supported in Figma and Sketch plugins.
Strings projects are coming to Crowdin Enterprise next month.
Want to see a live demo of the platform?
Webflow
With the recent introduction of the localization API in Webflow, Crowdin rushed to implement the new connection for your Webflow website localization. Our previous integration relied on JS proxy technology with its limitations and compromises. The new Webflow integration is smooth and offers all the best practices for translating websites. For now, the application is free and immediately available for everyone to try.
Moving Pre-Translate from Workflows to Project Settings in crowdin.com
An “Enable MT/TM pre-translate for new content” option is now available in the project settings in both the Translation Memory and the new Machine Translation sections on crowdin.com.
Also, in the Machine Translation section, we have added the ability to choose which languages to translate with configured engines so that you can translate different languages with different engines.
Figma
Below is a list of enhancements to the Crowdin plugin for Figma that make it more intuitive and efficient for product and marketing designers.
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Exclusion of non-essential text: Designers can now exclude non-translatable and invisible text from their designs when submitting new keys to Crowdin. This feature streamlines creating strings directly from designs, ensuring that only relevant text is included.
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Key creation tools: When creating a new key, designers can now provide additional contextual information, specify maximum acceptable translation lengths, and provide a plural string form when necessary.
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Element_id in key naming patterns: The new “element_id” option in the Key Naming Pattern setting is a game changer for designers. It eliminates the need to manually enter a key for each text element by automatically using the ID of the text element within the design. This feature greatly simplifies the process, saving time and reducing manual entry.
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Seamless integration with string projects: The Figma plugin now offers seamless compatibility with new Crowdin Strings projects.
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Context-aware interface: The Crowdin Figma plugin is a go-to tool for product designers to access and create product copy and translate various non-product UI elements, such as marketing materials and image captions. To reduce confusion for new users, the plugin now prompts designers to specify the type of content they’re working with. This allows the plugin to tailor its interface for a more streamlined experience.
Want to see a live demo of the platform?
Acumbamail
A new integration for localizing Acumbamail templates and their content.
Retina Screenshots
Add @2x to the filename for retina screenshots, and Crowdin will handle them for you.
Crowdin now automatically scales retina screenshots if the filename includes @2x or @3x. In the editor, screenshots are displayed in a fit screen mode by default, with an option to view them in their original size. Additionally, we’ve implemented intelligent detection for large screenshots, suggesting suitable names like name@2x.
Other Crowdin Updates
As usual, there are dozens of small bug fixes and improvements. The Google AutoML integration is now more robust. A few API methods have been improved, e.g. tasks created via the API now accept a list of strings you want to translate. Major updates to the TM API methods. A whole bunch of micro improvements to Markdown, Apple resource files, and others.
Additional updates include:
- Croql is now available in the List TM Records API method.
- Figma plugin: Versions 53, 54, 55
- Sketch plugin 2.8.0
- VS Code plugin 1.6.3
- Unity plugin 0.4.1
- Python API Client 1.14.0
- Flutter SDK 0.4.0
