ForceTouchTranslator

ForceTouchTranslator is a lightweight, instant translation tool for macOS. It allows you to Force Click (Deep Press) on your trackpad over any selected sentence or hovered word to display a native Apple-style dark mode translation popover instantly.

Powered by Hammerspoon.

Hover Single-Word Mode	Selected Sentence Mode

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Features

• Gesture & Trackpad Native Integration: Uses macOS Force Touch (pressure stage 2) events.
• Smart Text Detection:
  • Selected Sentence Mode: Select any sentence or multi-word paragraph and force-click to translate it as a whole without losing your active text selection.
  • Hover Single-Word Mode: Hover your cursor over a single word and force-click to translate just that word.
• Universal Application Support: Works seamlessly across Safari, Google Chrome, VS Code, Slack, Obsidian, Preview, PDF Readers, Notes, Pages, and native macOS apps.
• Clipboard Preserved: Automatically restores your original clipboard contents after fetching text.
• Apple UI Aesthetics: Sleek, borderless dark-mode popover with smooth fade-in animations. Dismisses instantly on Escape or clicking anywhere outside the window.
• Zero API Key Required: Powered by Google Translate free web endpoint.

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Installation (Very Easy)

Prerequisites

1. Install Hammerspoon for macOS.
2. Grant Hammerspoon Accessibility Permissions:
   • Open System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Accessibility
   • Enable Hammerspoon.

Setup

1. Download forcetouchtranslator.lua and place it in your Hammerspoon folder (~/.hammerspoon/).
2. Open ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua and add this line:

   dofile(os.getenv("HOME") .. "/.hammerspoon/forcetouchtranslator.lua")

3. Reload Hammerspoon config (Click the Hammerspoon menu bar icon -> Reload Config).

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Configuration

You can customize the target language and ignored apps at the top of forcetouchtranslator.lua:

-- Target language for translation (e.g., "tr" for Turkish, "es" for Spanish, "fr" for French, "de" for German)
local TARGET_LANGUAGE = "tr"

-- Applications where Force Touch translation should be ignored
local IGNORED_APPS = {
    "Finder",
    "Dock"
}

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.