ClipLingo

ClipLingo is a Windows-first offline translation utility built around one interaction: select text in another application, invoke a global shortcut, and read the translation in a compact popup without leaving the current workflow.

Install from PowerShell

From Windows PowerShell 5.1 or PowerShell 7, run:

$p = Join-Path $env:TEMP 'cliplingo-install.ps1'; Invoke-WebRequest 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/howlil/cliplingo/master/scripts/install.ps1' -UseBasicParsing -OutFile $p; & $p

The bootstrap resolves the newest published, non-draft GitHub Release, including alpha/beta prereleases, selects the Windows x64 NSIS installer, verifies its SHA256 from GitHub release metadata (with the release checksum sidecar as fallback), and only then runs the installer. The command is version-independent, so future prereleases or stable releases are picked automatically once published.

Optional silent install:

& $p -Silent

This installs the newest published release, not development code from master. Until Alpha 2 is published, the bootstrap continues to resolve the current Alpha 1 release.

Current master experience — EN → ID

master now contains the complete EN→ID Native Tray Translation Experience. The primary path is direct English -> Indonesian translation through a local OPUS-MT model:

ClipLingo in Windows system tray
        -> select English text
        -> Ctrl+Alt+T
        -> validate/capture selection
        -> local OPUS en -> id
        -> draggable Indonesian result popup

ClipLingo does not show a translation window just because the shortcut was pressed. The current selection must be valid and non-empty first. If there is no valid selection, the interaction stops silently and no translation request is started.

The Windows system tray/notification area is ClipLingo's persistent application home. Left-click the tray icon opens Settings. The tray menu exposes Settings and Quit ClipLingo. Closing Settings leaves ClipLingo running in the tray.

The merged master capability also includes proportional risk-routed CI and the PowerShell latest-release bootstrap. The verified milestone merge commit is a0d30205dfacb4ed9f15f493a95a7acbd2945135.

Settings

The Settings surface is intentionally small. It shows:

• primary route: English -> Indonesian;
• shortcut: Ctrl+Alt+T;
• offline model install/remove state;
• running status;
• explicit Quit ClipLingo action.

It is a Windows utility control surface, not a dashboard.

Offline model

The active model pack is en-id-opus-v1, built from the pinned Helsinki-NLP/opus-mt-en-id model and converted for local CPU INT8 inference with CTranslate2 + SentencePiece.

A fresh release installation can install the model explicitly. ClipLingo downloads the release-owned pack, verifies its SHA256 before activation, and keeps normal translation on-device. Raw selected and translated text is not written to normal diagnostics.

UI direction

ClipLingo uses restrained Windows utility styling: compact spacing, semantic typography, modest elevation, native light/dark adaptation, and a draggable EN → ID result surface. Decorative glass blur, gradients, glow, bento/card stacks, oversized radii, hero copy, and generic AI visual chrome are intentionally excluded. See DESIGN.md.

Published Alpha 1

v0.1.0-alpha.1 remains available as the first historical offline alpha. It used the earlier JA -> EN -> ID route and must not be confused with the EN -> ID capability now integrated into master. Published Alpha 1 binaries and checksums remain immutable.

• release: https://github.com/howlil/cliplingo/releases/tag/v0.1.0-alpha.1
• installer: ClipLingo_0.1.0-alpha.1_x64-setup.exe
• installer SHA256: 96a26f3985c95553177cb20f120b0bd1abb31040d8ded6af32132438c667e39b

The actual Alpha 1 shortcut is Ctrl+Alt+T; earlier documentation that said Ctrl+Shift+T was incorrect.

Alpha 2 status

The EN→ID/tray milestone is merged and verified on master, but v0.1.0-alpha.2 is not published yet. Publication remains a separate automated release qualification step.

The release workflow must successfully:

• build/validate the pinned en-id-opus-v1 production pack;
• build and execute the native runtime probe;
• perform a real non-deterministic English -> Indonesian translation through the isolated worker;
• build the tray-enabled Windows x64 NSIS installer;
• emit installer/model SHA256 checksums;
• publish the immutable prerelease only after all prior steps pass.

Manual Windows acceptance is not a mandatory merge or release gate. Environment-specific behavior that automation cannot credibly prove is treated as residual risk rather than a blocking ceremony.

Current architecture

• Presentation: Tauri 2 + Svelte 5 + TypeScript + Vite.
• Application core: Rust owns selection/translation workflow, request identity, popup state, tray lifecycle, model lifecycle, and worker lifecycle.
• Windows integration: windows-rs, Win32/COM/UI Automation, safe clipboard fallback, global shortcut, cursor/selection positioning, and Named Pipe transport.
• Inference: isolated cliplingo-worker.exe C++ process behind worker protocol v1.
• Native runtime: source-pinned CTranslate2 + SentencePiece with one coherent static MSVC CRT policy.
• Models: current active pack is direct OPUS-MT en -> id, CPU INT8.
• Normal translation path: local/offline after the required pack is installed.

Current scope limits

The current milestone does not include OCR, cloud fallback, GPU inference, translation history, accounts/sync, configurable shortcuts, automatic language detection, Japanese/additional production routes, or a broad settings dashboard.

Engineering guidance

Start with AGENTS.md. Canonical project knowledge lives in .agents/, current work is in .agents/CURRENT_ITERATION.md, and product-specific UI rules are in DESIGN.md.