Create a Trados Studio AutoSuggest Provider

The Trados Studio Integration API enables third-party developers to add custom AutoSuggest provider functionality.

Creating an AutoSuggest Provider

To create a Trados Studio AutoSuggest provider, follow these steps:

• Implement the AbstractAutoSuggestProvider abstract class in a provider class.
• Override the abstract methods in the AbstractAutoSuggestProvider base class to implement your custom provider.
• Decorate the provider class with the AutoSuggestProviderAttribute attribute.

If you fail to implement AbstractAutoSuggestProvider, an exception will be thrown. If you omit the AutoSuggestProviderAttribute, your plugin will simply be ignored when Trados Studio starts.

Example

The following example demonstrates how to implement a custom AutoSuggest provider.

The plugin implements the required abstract methods of the AbstractAutoSuggestProvider base class:

• GetSuggestions — returns the list of items for the auto suggestion list box
• OnActiveSegmentChanged — prepares the list of suggested items for the newly selected segment
• OnSettingsChanged — reacts to any change of the document settings
• OnActiveDocumentChanged — reacts to changes of the active document

Sample AutoSuggest Provider

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
using Sdl.FileTypeSupport.Framework.BilingualApi;
using Sdl.TranslationStudioAutomation.IntegrationApi.AutoSuggest;
using Sdl.TranslationStudioAutomation.IntegrationApi.Extensions;

namespace AutoSuggest.Sample
{
    [AutoSuggestProvider(Id = "SourceCopyAutoSuggestProvider", Name = "AutoSuggest provider for copying the source words")]
    public class SourceCopyAutoSuggestProvider : AbstractAutoSuggestProvider
    {
        private List<string> _segmentWordSuggestCandidates;

        public SourceCopyAutoSuggestProvider()
        {
            // Set the default icon for the suggestions from this provider
            Icon = new Icon(SystemIcons.Exclamation, 16, 16);
        }

        #region AutoSuggestProvider Implementation
        /// <summary>
        /// This function is not necessary for this sample. It just shows in case you need dictionary or some other language specific action, you can do it here.
        /// </summary>
        protected override void OnActiveDocumentChanged()
        {
            if (ActiveDocument != null)
            {
                var sourceLanguage = ActiveDocument.Project.GetProjectInfo().SourceLanguage;
                var targetLanguage = ActiveDocument.Files.First().Language;

                System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("SourceCopyAutoSuggestProvider Language pair: {0}->{1}", sourceLanguage.DisplayName, targetLanguage.DisplayName);

                // in case you need prepare the dictionary for this language pair, do it here
            }
            else
            {
                _segmentWordSuggestCandidates = null;
            }

            System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("OnActiveDocumentChanged  {0}", ActiveDocument != null);
        }

        // when user goes to a segment, we want to prepare the AutoSuggest Candidate first. 
        // when it takes long, for performance reason, the execution might be done in a separate thread.
        protected override void OnActiveSegmentChanged()
        {
            if (Settings.Enabled)
            {
                PrepareSegmentSuggestCandiates();
            }
            else
            {
                _segmentWordSuggestCandidates = null;
            }
            System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("OnActiveSegmentChanged  {0}", ActiveSegmentPair != null);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// We only provide the AutoSuggest when the candidate is available. The user might have the change from disabled to enabled, we need preapre the candidate.
        /// </summary>
        protected override void OnSettingsChanged()
        {
            if (Settings.Enabled)
            {
                PrepareSegmentSuggestCandiates();
            }
            else
            {
                _segmentWordSuggestCandidates = null;
            }
        }

        protected override IEnumerable<AbstractAutoSuggestResult> GetSuggestions(AbstractEditingContext context)
        {
            if (Settings.Enabled)
            {
                string suffix = context.GetAllPrefixes().First();
                if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(suffix) && _segmentWordSuggestCandidates != null && _segmentWordSuggestCandidates.Count > 0)
                {
                    return _segmentWordSuggestCandidates
                        .Where(item => item.StartsWith(suffix, Settings.CaseSensitive ? StringComparison.InvariantCulture : StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase))
                        .Select(item =>
                            {
                                var result = new AutoSuggestTextResult(context, item);
                                result.Priority = Settings.Priority;

                                // Set different icon for suggestions starting with "a". For the rest set the default provider icon
                                result.Icon = result.Text.StartsWith("a") ? new Icon(SystemIcons.Question, 16, 16) : Icon;

                                return result;
                            });
                }

            }
            return null;
        }

        #endregion

        private void PrepareSegmentSuggestCandiates()
        {
            if (ActiveSegmentPair != null)
            {
                var stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
                foreach (var item in ActiveSegmentPair.Source.AllSubItems)
                {
                    var text = item as IText;
                    if (text != null)
                    {
                        stringBuilder.Append(text.Properties.Text);
                    }
                }

                // Split the sentence to words in a naive way, in practice a better way is needed to to tokenize the sentence.
                // As a sample we will show the source words in the AutoSuggest, in practice, translation to the target language are needed
                _segmentWordSuggestCandidates = Regex.Split(stringBuilder.ToString(), @"\W+").ToList();

                System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("PrepareSegmentSuggestCandiates: {0}", stringBuilder.ToString());
                System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("{0}", _segmentWordSuggestCandidates == null);
            }
        }

    }
}