TransAssist — Minimalist Translator Assistant

TransAssist is a modern, flat, ultra-minimalist web application designed to assist translators in translating novels, documents, and other text-based files line-by-line.

🚀 Key Features

• Segmented Workspace: Break down text line-by-line or sentence-by-sentence in a split-screen translation editor.
• Drag-and-Drop Merging & Reordering: Drag cells together to merge sentences for better contextual translations, or drag rows to reorder them.
• Machine Translation (MT) Row: Double-engine suggestions (Google Translate and MyMemory) display instantly on focus.
• Integrated Glossary: Highlights terms matching user glossary terms with quick-insert suggestion tags. Supports exporting and importing glossaries.
• Auto-Save & Local Backups: Automatically saves draft state to local storage. Export .transassist files for offline backups, or .txt for completed translation text.

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📂 Project Structure

The project has been split into frontend and backend folders for clean service management and serverless deployment:

TransAssist/
├── backend/                  # FastAPI Application
│   ├── main.py               # API endpoints (segmentation, Google & MyMemory translation)
│   ├── requirements.txt      # Python dependencies
│   └── vercel.json           # Vercel configuration for backend-only deployment
├── frontend/                 # Vue 3 (Vite) Application
│   ├── src/                  # Vue components, stores (Pinia), and styles (Tailwind v4)
│   │   ├── components/       # Workspace, Glossary, FileImport components
│   │   ├── stores/           # Pinia workspace state store
│   │   └── style.css         # Tailwind directives and custom overrides
│   ├── index.html            # Main SPA entrypoint & font setup
│   ├── package.json          # Node dependencies
│   └── vercel.json           # Vercel configuration for frontend-only deployment
├── dev.py                    # Root developer script to run both servers concurrently
├── vercel.json               # Root-level Vercel config for unified deployment
└── README.md                 # Project guide

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💻 Local Development

1. Prerequisite Packages

Ensure you have Python 3.9+ and Node.js v18+ installed on your system.

2. Quick Launch

To run both the backend and frontend development servers concurrently:

python dev.py

This script will:

• Detect and use the virtual environment in .venv/ (if it exists) to launch the FastAPI server at http://localhost:8000.
• Launch the Vite development server for the Vue frontend at http://localhost:5173.

Alternatively, you can run them in separate terminals:

Backend:

cd backend
pip install -r requirements.txt
python -m uvicorn main:app --reload --port 8000

Frontend:

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

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☁️ Vercel Deployment

TransAssist is ready to deploy on Vercel. You can choose to deploy it in one unified project (simplest, avoids CORS configuration) or as two separate projects (standard frontend/backend split).

Option A: Unified Project Deployment (Recommended)

This approach deploys the entire repository to a single Vercel URL. Static files are compiled, and all /api/* requests route internally to serverless Python handlers.

1. Install the Vercel CLI or log into Vercel Dashboard.
2. Connect your Git repository (select the root directory TransAssist).
3. Vercel will automatically read the root-level vercel.json.
4. Deploy! The frontend and backend will be hosted on the same domain.

Option B: Separate Project Deployment

Use this method to host the backend API and Vue frontend under separate domains.

1. Deploy the Backend API

• Point your Vercel project to the backend folder as the Root Directory.
• Vercel will build the API using the @vercel/python serverless runtime according to the configuration in backend/vercel.json.
• Note your deployed backend API URL (e.g., https://transassist-api.vercel.app).

2. Deploy the Vue Frontend

• Point a second Vercel project to the frontend folder as the Root Directory.
• Configure the following Environment Variable in the Vercel Dashboard for the frontend project:
  • Key: VITE_API_URL
  • Value: https://transassist-api.vercel.app (your backend's Vercel URL, without a trailing slash)
• Deploy! The frontend will fetch suggestions from your dedicated backend API.